Insurance

[Mrs H]

I was just wondering if anyone knew off hand how much the insurance premium is which BOF pays on our behalf. I put 'Insurance premium' in the BOF search engine but nothing came up.

[aiming off]

No I don't.

But I do know a more transparent organisation, British Triathlon, paid £37,000 in 2009, £53,000 in 2010, and £67,000 in 2011. With a similar membership base, but I would imagine a higher risk profile due to the cycling.

[greywolf]

I was just wondering if anyone knew off hand how much the insurance premium is which BOF pays on our behalf. I put 'Insurance premium' in the BOF search engine but nothing came up.

I had imagined that this (and other major categories of expenditure) would be itemised in the annual accounts... but it's not. in fact it's not clear under which of the generic expenditure headings it's hidden ("membership & events" or "governance & administration"?)

I'd assume the Directors must know, so hopefully one of them can enlighten us...otherwise a direct question to the Treasurer at the AGM should do the trick

[edit: just looked in the Annual Report and those pie charts really are shabby - a classic case of "look at the pretty pictures and don't notice we can't even be arsed to use consistent colours and budget headings"]

[Big Jon]

But I do know a more transparent organisation, British Triathlon, paid £37,000 in 2009, £53,000 in 2010, and £67,000 in 2011. With a similar membership base, but I would imagine a higher risk profile due to the cycling.

I'd like to know more about this increase - is it linked to greater numbers, some large claims or is it just the insurance companies ripping off sports?

[aiming off]

Mainly due to growth: i.e membership subscriptions income up from 307,000 to 417,000 between 2010 and 2011.

Interestingly a sport with around the same number of members as ours has been able to pull in £850,000 of commercial sponsorship in 2011 from the likes of Tata Steel, GE and Panasonic etc. Has gone straight to financial reserves. Lucky Triathlon.

[Paul Frost]

just looked in the Annual Report and those pie charts really are shabby - a classic case of "look at the pretty pictures and don't notice we can't even be arsed to use consistent colours and budget headings"]

My first thought when I saw the grouping was how useless it is form any picture of what things cost. I would expect membership and events to have such a diverse income and expenditure structure that they needed separate groups.
Events alone should be split up further, major events already has paid employees and will have even more according to the report:

Development of the JK to continue, including the employment of a part time coordinator.

The funding model of "Partnerships" rather than straight levies is also very different to non-major events. So it's impossible to work out the true costs of the current structure.

I'm sure there is some smudging of the figures to keep grant providers happy that we are spending their money on things they approve of, but that makes it harder for members to judge if they are getting value for money.

[Big Jon]

Mainly due to growth: i.e membership subscriptions income up from 307,000 to 417,000 between 2010 and 2011.

Interestingly a sport with around the same number of members as ours has been able to pull in £850,000 of commercial sponsorship in 2011 from the likes of Tata Steel, GE and Panasonic etc. Has gone straight to financial reserves. Lucky Triathlon.

Triathlon is an Olympic sport therefore newspapers and TV cover it. I am sure that is the reason for commercial sponsorship. Orienteering will need to get lucky and/or work incredibly hard to get anything along those lines. Maybe huge applications to Lottery and other grant giving bodies is the best bet - it certainly is at club level.

[Mrs H]

Just to let you know that I did ask this question of BOF and although I received an acknowledgement I have to date received no reply - so if anyone going to the AGM wants to ask the question "live" so to speak - I' be very interested to hear the answer

[greywolf]

Did anyone ask at the AGM?
And did anyone answer?

[Paul Frost]

Mike Forrest said it's about £16,000, but the cost is not generally revealed in the accounts as it could be used by competing insurance companies.

[Taybank]

If the insurance companies know what we paid this year they might come up with something cheaper next year.
That's the way competition is meant to work.
Besides, are they really going to bother looking up what orienteering paid this or any other year.
No, secrecy is all part of the corporate dogma (in public and private sectors) we keep voting for.
We are a small sport.It is still the backwoods orienteer who does the real work in putting on events and making the sport work. There are too many hangers on. Lets get back to simplicity.

[Mrs H]

Oh that's much cheaper than I was expecting - you people who are good at sums, about how much does that work out per event, club or competitive run do you think?

[Paul Frost]

254,205 total participants (events and activities) in 2011 according to the annual report, so that's just over 6p per person/per event/activity.

[Big Jon]

How much would SOA be quoted for its own insurance policy?

[SeanC]

This figure is the cost of the premium but does not include the cost of negociating the premium since we are paying BOF to do this on our behalf. Since the existing policy comes with various strings that cause pain at grass roots level (events must have a safety controller to check the risk assessment, only coaches at certain level can coach unsupervised in certain area etc) it is reasonable to assume that without these negociations the insurance conditions may well have been even more restrictive and potentially damaging to the sport's development.

There is also the additional administrative cost of fielding questions from clubs and helping them stay within the rules.

Scotland may have the infrastructure to do this independantly, but most (all?) of the english regions/Wales/NI probably don't.