Do I need public liability insurance for a garden party?

[Courgettesandonions]

A friend and I are organising a winter garden party/gathering on her smallholding for our hobby group. The entire event will be outdoors. There will be a small fire. We're expecting 20 people. We know half of them and the others are random people who are part of the wider hobby group circle on FB but we haven't met them before. Do we need public liability insurance for this type of event?
Any help appreciated!

Check with the committee of the hobby group. They should have their own insurance which covers group members at organised events.

There isn't a committee unfortunately. It's
a loose group of people with a shared interest.

If it’s on private property and a private event (I.e. invite only) then no, you don’t.

If it's being held on her private property it might be worth looking at her own legal liability cover on the home insurance - assuming she has it

Obviously it would need very careful reading, but if there's any doubt I guess she could call the insurers to check?

Thank you. I'll ask her to check her home insurance. I guess our concern is more about what if someone gets injured (very low risk) rather than about her property getting destroyed. It is invite only in the sense that we know exactly who is coming - it's not just open to anyone. We have given the address individually to people. But at the same time there are people that we haven't met before so in this sense you could say that it's 'public' because we shared the opportunity with the wider hobby community group (private group on FB).
Maybe I am over worrying.

I honestly don’t think this is massively different to a child’s birthday party, when you may have a bouncy castle and/or entertainment and you invite the class, but realistically you don’t know the children or the parents personally. I think it isn’t something most people would worry about for a birthday and so I probably wouldn’t worry about it in this case. We have a smallholding with a fire pit and have had friends over who brought their older children we’d never met, and no, I wasn’t really worried about whether we are insured to cover if someone fell into a fire (though we do have public liability insurance through our home insurance). If it was an event open to the public, I think that would be different.

I guess our concern is more about what if someone gets injured (very low risk) rather than about her property getting destroyed

I know, OP; it's why I mentioned the public liability add-ons which are available on home insurance policies, as opposed to the buildings/contents bits

Having checked my own I see it does cover injury to guests, but as with all insurance it's full of ifs and buts, so as said she'd need to check it out very carefully

Oh, and hope it all goes brilliantly

I would very clearly tell people that there is no insurance and no liability as per of the invite.

What's the worst that could happen? And would anyone sue you? They trip over pissed and burn their hand on the fire? And if they even thought for one millisecond to sue you hopefully they'd be laughed out of the group and never spoken to again?

Thanks all. I really appreciate these responses. It's very low risk but I do have form for getting a bit anxious about stuff like this. This thread is has been a great help.

This

Double check your home and contents insurance if still concerned