What exactly is public liability insurance?

[momb]

I know that it is there to protect the general public from accident etc caused by business, groups and so on.
I'm trying to get it to cover my family for a specific activity and no-one seems to do it unless you are a business of some sort.

Can anyone advise?
Thanks

If it's an activity happening on your property, you would be covered by your home insurance (check though). If it's happening on someone else's premises (e.g. a school or church) they will already have cover in place and you might be covered by theirs but again would need to check.

Public Liability Insurance is taken out by employers to protect their customers for any damage that may be caused, etc.

You probably need some sort of Personal Accident Insurance.

As an employer, we have PLI, but we also have a separate personal accident insurance for our employee, and another for our son who does Motocross, a quite specific sport that not many insurance companies will cover.

I can give you their number if it helps, but will have to search for it.

Okay, found it - they are Combined Insurance, 0870 060 5510.

If you are thinking of a snow-sports holiday (ski-ing, snowboarding, etc) there are many travel insurance companies who cover this. Ours is with Aviva.

So your family are thinking of doing something that could result in injuries to others, is that right?

Public Liability Insurance is held by a business - it covers them if someone is injured because of them. So if you were a facepainter, and a child had an allergic reaction to your paints, your PLI would cover the costs.

As Dotty has said, if the activity takes place at home, check that your home insurance will cover it. If it happens abroad, you'll need travel insurance that includes the activity (things like skiing and watersports are usually added extras). If neither of those apply, you need Accident Insurance.

So your family are thinking of doing something that could result in injuries to others, is that right?

No, my family (me) are thinking of booking something which is usually booked by groups who must have public liability insurance so the venue doesn't have to. It's a stipulation of the hire.

There are 7 of us: 2 adults, 3 teens, 2 preteens. It's an outdoorsy activity. It's very hard to find something aimed at families which is age/skill appropriate. So not hard to find something for any of the age groups separately but surprisingly hard to find something together in a family dynamic with older children/teens.

I think that Infinity has the right analysis, then. A group would insure against the possibility that a member of the group would sue them for negligence. You just want to insure against the possibility of being hurt. There's a further question then about whether the venue will find that acceptable insurance to meet their conditions of letting you use their facility - how comfortable they feel that they will thereby avoid liability.

I would personally be very wary indeed of engaging in activities with an Activity Company who does not have PLI themselves. Sounds a bit suspect, to me. To my mind, a company who runs any activity should have their own PLI. To ask you to provide your own in such a scenario is a bit of a cop-out on their side.