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Brian Nystrom

wrote:
Brian Nystrom wrote
[...]
Most of the other clubs in our area have eschewed membership in the ACA
PAC program and just go it alone. They rely on the principles of the
"Common Adventure Model" for liability protection. To date AFAIK, none
of the clubs or their members have been sued for anything that has
happened at any of their club functions, trips, etc., primarily because
their safety record is exemplary, as is ours. With the cost of insurance
going through the roof, I suspect that CAM is the wave of the future.

The question of insurance is the major issue. Our current club officers
are very nervous about going to a waver scheme -- feeling that they
would not provide any reliable protection for the club or the paddle
leaders.

The issue is how your trips are structured. If you have defined leaders,
they will have increased liability. If your trips are "let's get
together and paddle" affairs with no formal structure, they fall under
the auspices of the CAM. As for your club officers, depending on how
many there are and how many members you have, it may be cheaper to just
buy a personal liability policy for each officer than to pay for ACA
insurance.

I don't know if paddling is any more hazardous than playing
baseball. What do baseball clubs use?

I don't know. I assume that they must have some form of insurance, but
being a more mainstream activity, there are probably several sources for
it, unlike with kayaking.