Insurance for motorcycle guiding

Hildasay

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I am currently doing a Green Badge tourist guiding course in Shetland. I am looking (purely hypothetically for now as having to complete an assigment) at offering guided motorcycle day tours.
What insurance would I need, where could I get it and what (roughly) might it cost?
Any advice gratefully received.
 
Search John Paul Dixon on Facebook, M power consultancy…. He’s your man…runs guiding courses too.
 
You’ll possibly need two things:

1. To have your motor insurance insurer notified that you now use your motorcycle for business use, the ‘business’ being guiding people on your tours. Depending on what exactly you are doing, this might well be possible for free. For example, friends of mine who do on-road training for coaching bods to take a RoSPA / IAM test most often get charged nothing or very little. Some of them do this under the banner of a RoSPA or IAM affiliated group and some under their own private enterprise and some under both.

However, it might depend on how much of a ‘business’ your new enterprise is. In other words, are you doing it for:

A. Fun and zero financial reward, a bit like when I took bods on Wapping’s Wanders

B. A modest fee, simply to cover your ‘reasonable’ expenses for the day

C. A profit making enterprise

2. If it’s a true business (and maybe if it isn’t but you want protection from possibly being sued) some form of public liability insurance (beyond and separate to what is covered by your motor insurance) something a bit like this:

https://www.devittinsurance.com/training-school/

https://www.devittinsurance.com/training-school/

These might be a bit too broad as they seem to be tailored towards full-on training establishments, whilst you are ‘guiding’ people (presumably they’ll be paying you, so you’ll maybe be making a profit of some sort and you’ll have entered into a contract with your customers) but the limits of liability cover mentioned are maybe - I don’t know - not too unrealistic.

Just because they are a ‘good bloke’, enjoy a brew and a laugh and ride a motorcycle, don’t assume that one of your customers will not sue you if something untoward happens. It might not be them don’t forget but their wife / partner, should they feel that you - through your negligence - got them killed or injured. However, temper this through the realisation that:

A. You’ll probably have to be proven to be negligent to have an award made against you.

B. There is no point in anyone suing someone who has no assets or money to pay the award granted; the so called ‘man of straw’. In other words, you might need / want to run this ‘guiding’ venture through some sort of limited liability company, where your financial exposure would be limited.

If nothing else, your public liability insurance may well come in handy to indemnify you for your legal costs in repudiating the scurrilous action brought against you by that ‘nice bloke who rides a motorbike’.

PS Liability insurance for this used to be cheap but, like many other costs, has in some cases maybe been rising over the last couple of years. It’s not something I do day-to-day, so talk to a proper broker / intermediary.

PPS The ‘Green Badge’ (whatever that is) organisation might be able to help you, perhaps? They might, as some sort of ‘organisation’, carry their own liability insurance. But that is just a guess.
 
Thank you for the replies, especially Wapping for going into so much detail. I will get in touch with John Paul Dixon. I have already contacted Devitts and am waiting for them to get back to me.

The "Green Badge" scheme is a local guiding qualification issued by the Scottish Tourist Guides Association (STGA). As a member of the STGA I will have some professional indemnity insurance but it will not cover me for anything involving vehicles.
 
Thank you.

Let us know please what you decide on, as it might be helpful to others.
 
I stopped leading groups of bikers when it dawned on me , after someone fell off with his young son on the pillion, that in a litigious world I could be somehow held liable. These were very gentle mostly off road one-day rides using forestry tracks. I tried half a dozen brokers/insurance companies for liabicover but their imagination was limited and couldn’t get their heads round the gentle and limited nature of what I was doing - they wanted to treat it as a rally. Best price was well north of £1000 per event ie day. (This was 2014).

Good luck with your search and do update us as I may be interested in resurrecting these events if more reasonable liability cover was available.
 
Interestingly John and the team have put together The Overland Guides Association

I knew it was being discussed but didn't know it was live.

I suspect JP will be at March Moto Madness at Haggs Bank - I know Kelvin will be as it's local to him and Gary is a regular at the event too so if you wanted to pop down and meet them in person then it would be a good opportunity to do so.

A very experienced team of people who have come together to address the exact concerns raised in AustinW's post above.

Haggs Bank are one of the very few places I know who have had proper training and insurance for their on and off road ride outs from the outset.

Even the recovery vehicle was co-manned by an experienced search and rescue person last year (admittedly it had a complete numpty driving it, but in my defence I was only supposed to be cooking but sort of got roped into it :D)

They have an insurance scheme link on their website (although it wasn't working for me just now) so I'm sure they'll be able to help.

hello@theoga.info
 
I had a long chat with JP Dixon yesterday. He is indeed a top bloke and was very helpful and generous with his time. He did point me in the direction of the OGA and I think that, if I did decide to turn my currently hypothetical plans into real ones, one of my first steps would be to attend one of their courses. For the time being, I will focus on finishing my assignment and getting through the current course.
Thanks again to everyone who replied!
 


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