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Originally Posted by Mr_I
A long series of discussions began today, starting with a question on insurance. Our school's insurance can not cover students on our team from other schools.
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I'm going to leave the "should" question out of this (the answer to that is, "yes, you should include any age-appropriate youth who wants to participate"), and I wanted to focus on the insurance question.
In my years of wandering through business I've heard this "our insurance won't allow it" statement used as an excuse for lots of restrictive policies. The majority of the time what is really being said is, "we don't want to allow this, but if we blame our insurance, we can get away without having to justify ourselves." It is an appeal to an absent authority that cannot be appealed to, and is meant to end all discussion. If you haven't read the actual policy yourself, I wouldn't trust anyone's interpretation. It's possible that your school is stupid enough to buy a general liability policy that only covers enrolled students, but I doubt it. Let's think of all the things that this opens up the school to:
1. A non-enrolled sibling of a student comes on campus with mom and slips in the bathroom and hits his head on the sink. Will the insurance cover this non-student?
2. The school is playing a basketball game against another school in the gym. The opposing team's center jumps up and slams his head into the bottom of the backboard. Will the insurance cover this non-student?
3. Neighborhood kids come over to play baseball on the sports field after hours (with or without permission). One of them trips and breaks her leg on a sprinkler head on the field. Will the insurance cover this non-student?
4. A family brings a student's best friend along to the science fair. The friend breathes some spores from a biology experiment plant and has a serious allergic reaction which puts her in the hospital. Will the insurance cover this non-student?
Let's think about the kind of insurance a school would really want. They would prefer a liability policy that would cover any person on school grounds for any reason. A liability policy that excluded certain people would open up teachers, administrators, and the school board to personal liability in the event that any non-student was injured on school grounds. I wouldn't buy a restricted policy, would you?
Even if the school inexplicably excludes non-students from coverage, it's a pretty easy problem to fix. Inquire as the cost of a liability rider to allow non-students to participate in extra-curricular activities on campus. Have the team include the cost of this rider in their fund-raising. It's just a question of money, not a real problem (like fitting in everything you want on the robot within the weight limit...).
I'm not saying that someone is making up stories, it just seems likely. There's always a way if it is just about money.