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How safe is your resort?

  

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One of the most important aspects of maintaining a resort is minimizing the various physical and liability risks associated with this type of business. Summer or winter, resorts are filled with tourists. Tourist resorts have a myriad of third parties on site throughout their resort, and often times, they are not managing this risk systematically.

An example of claims that have occurred is when an athletic event takes place at a resort that a sport organization is hosting. In some instances an injured athlete will likely sue both the sport organization and the resort. Although the resort might “feel” that they had no negligence, if they have not agreed to a proper contract with the sport organization, nor have proper protection as an “additional insured” on the sport organization’s policy, then they had no recourse to be defended by the sport organization. In accident or claim situations such as this, many of the following instances could occur:

1. The resort’s insurer responds to the claim and defends you, but you have a deductible to pay and a loss on your record.
2. The resort might have exclusion on their policy for such activities - although a small probability - and the insurer denies coverage. An example of this exposure could be with Mountain biking: there are often Mountain Bike exclusions on policies.
3. The insurer denies the claim because this activity is outside of your operations and hasn’t been reported; therefore it is not included.

How do you protect your self against these types of incidents from occurring?

1. Ensure that you have a systematic process in place to review with third parties that are linked to your company and your insurance protocols.
2. Have a designated person responsible to manage this process with written protocols. This will ensure that they are informed of any new third parties.
3. Have a certificate of insurance checklist to help manage the process.
4. Know the exclusions on your liability policy.
5. For higher-risk third party exposures -people coming to your resort and offering waterskiing, mountain biking or zip lining - have a contract in place between you and the third party specifically, outlining the insurance obligations.

Gougeon Insurance Brokers is non-traditional in our approach; we offer support with risk management strategies to help our clients lower their costs.

Download our FREE Certificate of Insurance checklist to help begin reviewing this important risk exposure and to ensure you’re protected.