Page 49 - Misconduct a Reference for Race Officials

APPENDIX 4: Inspection of Insurance Certificates

It is common for event entry forms to require participants to hold a policy of
insurance to cover any liability to third parties that may arise during the event. If
an organiser imposes such a requirement then it is a logical extension for the
organiser to consider whether it ought to implement a regime in which it asks
participants to produce the relevant insurance certificates for inspection by the
organiser.

This issue was considered in the case of Gwilliam v. West Hertfordshire
Hospital NHS Trust (2002), in which the claimant was injured on a “splat wall”
children’s amusement at a fundraising fair organised in the grounds of a hospital.
The claimant sued the contractor who was operating the amusement but it
transpired that the operator’s public liability insurance policy had expired. The
claimant settled her claim against the contractor in a sum that reflected his
uninsured financial position and sought to recover the shortfall in compensation
from the hospital Trust, on the basis that the Trust had asked the contractor to
ensure that insurance was in place but the Trust had not itself sought to verify the
policy.

It was held that the Trust owed the claimant a duty of care as the occupier of the
premises so the issue turned on whether the Trust had discharged this duty by
engaging a reasonably competent contractor. It was contended by the claimant
that the contractor was not reasonably competent because he did not have valid
public liability insurance and that the Trust was liable because it should have
ensured that such insurance was in place. In giving his Judgment Lord Woolf
LCJ said that in order to discharge its duty of care the Trust was under an
obligation to enquire into the insurance position of the contractor but it was not
obliged to confirm whether or not the policy was in force. Lord Woolf stated that
to require the Trust to confirm whether or not the policy was valid would be
unreasonable. It was accordingly held that the Trust had not been negligent by
failing to check that the contractor’s public liability insurance policy was valid.

However, if notwithstanding the Gwilliam case an organiser chooses to
undertake to inspect participants’ insurance certificates then it may leave itself
exposed to liability should it negligently fail to inspect the certificates properly.

For example, a participant who was injured (or whose boat was damaged) by an
uninsured participant may seek to claim that the organiser, having made it known
that participants’ insurance certificates would be checked, was under a duty to

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