As summer draws to a close, and we have our first few months of socialising under our belts and in some cases participating in fundraising events too, we can all agree how vital these fundraisers are to maintaining financial support for charities. Whether you’re looking to raise money for a specific initiative, or topping up your reserves to cover your running costs, events are a highly effective way to get those much-needed funds.
In this blog post we will share our top tips for running a safe event, and why we highly recommend getting insurance to cover your event.
As an insurer, Ansvar has seen just how much the right insurance cover can make a difference for those who have needed to make a claim, but we have also heard cautionary tales of organisations who decided event insurance wasn’t a priority for them.
Perform a risk assessment
First and foremost, you need to understand the risks of running your charity event from the offset. Simply knowing what those risks are, will allow you to mitigate many of them.
An insurance broker will be able to give you more specific advice depending on the event you plan on holding, but here’s some general guidance from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) to get you started:
- Identify the hazards
- Decide who could be harmed and how. Are there any children or vulnerable adults taking part?
- Evaluate the risks and decide on control measures
- Record your findings and implement them
- Review your assessment and update if necessary
You can’t afford not to
We know the cost of an event will be a big part of your planning process; as a charity, it’s natural you’ll want to minimise your unnecessary spending wherever you can, but one of the best choices you can make when organising an event is to take out specific event insurance to cover your charity and those involved, should something go wrong.
Find a good insurance broker
Not only will a good insurance broker be able to find you the best cover for your event, but they will also have the expertise to advise just how risky they think your event could be. They will have experience in covering other events and may be able to see things you could have missed, giving you even more peace of mind.
They can also help you with setting up an incident management procedure in advance, as well as deciding whether things like medical care on-site is warranted.
We hope you’ll never need to make a claim and that your event is a huge success, but if it doesn’t, you’ll be so grateful that you had the forethought to protect yourself and your charity.
As a specialist insurer, we’ve seen claims that show us just how wrong things can go, leading to traumatic and heartbreaking events such as sustaining life-changing injuries on a water slide, or being crushed under a car during a charity bike ride. If something goes wrong at your event, whether it’s malicious damage or an accident, the cost can far outweigh any income you make.
Some further guidance
If you’re looking for more information and guidance on event fundraising, we recommend visiting the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIOF) where there are plenty of useful tips and links there to help you keep your event as safe as possible to get you started.
Do the work now, so you can enjoy your event on the day
Once you have everything in place before the event, you’ll be able to sit back, relax, and enjoy the event, safe in the knowledge that your patrons are protected and you’re covered for any unavoidable accidents.
Sarah Cox is the Managing Director of charity and faith insurance specialist, Ansvar
Related articles
