[Community_garden] Liability Insurance

[Jack Hale]

Well, there is the "Starting a Community Garden" piece available on the
ACGA website.  It's pretty good for folks who are just starting to get
their hands dirty.  It's not particularly comprehensive, though.  By way
of increased comprehensiveness or something, here is the piece I wrote
on liability insurance quite a few years ago.  I guess things haven't
changed much because I put this out every year or so, and so far nobody
has told me I'm off base.
JH

Jack N. Hale
Executive Director
Knox Parks Foundation
75 Laurel Street
Hartford, CT 06106
860/951-7694
===========================

Insurance for community gardens

For several years, the board of the American Community Gardening
Association has been working to provide liability insurance for member
gardens.  Surveys of members suggested that obtaining such insurance was
a priority for many gardens.  We did provide access to coverage during
1998, but less than a dozen gardens took advantage of the offer.  In
1999, the insurance company was unwilling to renew the coverage, and we
were unable to find another carrier.  Although we continued to seek a
carrier, we were unsuccessful.  Here is what I have been telling members
who are seeking insurance.

1.	Liability insurance protects the organization that owns it or
some other entity (like a land owner) who is "named as additional
insured" on the policy.  It protects gardeners or volunteers indirectly
only if the insured organization stands between them and a potential
lawsuit.  It does not protect individuals from legal action, nor does it
necessarily pay individuals for injuries or damage that occur at a
garden.  Most gardens have insurance because they have an organization
to protect or because some other entity requires coverage in order for
the garden to exist.

2.	Usually, individual gardens seeking liability coverage will pay
a high price.  Just as group health insurance is much less expensive
than individual coverage, insurance purchased by a larger organization
to cover a multitude of risks will be less expensive per coverage than
the same insurance purchased piecemeal.  Therefore, if you are a single
garden suffering from sticker shock, the best avenue may be to ask a
larger organization that already has liability coverage to sponsor the
garden.  Such organizations might include community groups, churches,
horticultural/agricultural organizations, or anything else that might
work in your locale.

3.	Often it is a city or town providing land for a garden that is
requesting insurance.  They usually have a "risk manager" whose job is
to protect the municipality against all risk.  Whenever the town enters
into a relationship, that relationship is passed before the risk
manager, and the risk manager almost always says "buy insurance" to
protect the town.  But towns always have lots of insurance.  They engage
in lots of risky business.  Adding a community garden to their list of
risks will have almost no impact on their overall risk and on the cost
of their insurance.  It becomes a political issue and should be treated
as such.  If the town wants to support community gardening, the risk is
trivial; if the town doesn't want to support community gardening, it is
easier to say "buy insurance" than "we don't like you."
A side issue that arises in some cases is whether the gardens are
public.  In Berkeley, California, the city wanted to require insurance
and also require that the gardens be open to the public.  People who
don't want to support gardens compare them to parks that are ostensibly
open to everybody all the time.  They point out that community gardens
have fences and gates and private plots.  More politics.  Perhaps
compare your garden to a football stadium.  Very risky activity going on
there, and fully supported by the town!  Anybody can go and watch when
there is a game on, but hardly anybody gets to play.  Which is more
exclusive, a garden or a sports field?  Remember that anybody can walk
by and look at the garden.  You might even schedule some times when the
garden is open for public enjoyment.  This does suggest, however, that
gardeners need to design and maintain their gardens in ways that truly
do enhance their neighborhoods.

4.	Insurance is a local business, governed to some extent by state
law and regulation.  Although there is a certain amount of uniformity
and insurance companies operate across state lines, your experience with
coverages and costs may be quite different from those in a neighboring
state.  If you have to buy insurance, a creative and responsive local
agent can be very important.  Remember that there is a good chance they
haven't insured a garden before and they will have to figure out how to
do it.  Here in Connecticut, we started out with an insurance agent who
decided gardens were like vacant lots, which tend to attract
inappropriate uses.  Premiums were based on street frontage and they
were high.  Strangely enough, our largest garden, which had no street
frontage, was insured for nothing, while one of our smaller gardens on a
corner lot carried a high premium.  Our current agent, which specializes
in insurance for non-profit social service organizations, decided
gardens were like social service programs and did a more general
analysis of risk.  Our premiums are now quite low.

5.	If gardeners or garden officers are concerned about personal
risk (i.e.-potential for being sued as individuals due to their
involvement in a garden), the best solution is probably "umbrella
coverage."  People can usually obtain this for a relatively small
premium as an add-on to homeowner's or renter's insurance.  Talk to your
agent.

6.	I am not an expert on insurance.  Don't take this as
professional advice from me or from the American Community Gardening
Association.  At best, this is an indication of insurance issues as they
have been faced by community gardens throughout the U.S. (not much info
on Canada).  You need to work out your own local situation.  I will be
happy to talk to anyone interested in exploring this further.  I will
also attempt to respond to questions about the information provided here
and specific insurance issues.

Jack N. Hale
Executive Director
Knox Parks Foundation
75 Laurel Street
Hartford, CT 06106
860/951-7694
f 860/951-7244
jackh at knoxparks.org


-----Original Message-----
From: community_garden-bounces at list.communitygarden.org
[mailto:community_garden-bounces at list.communitygarden.org] On Behalf Of
Don Boekelheide
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 1:33 PM
To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
Subject: Re: [Community_garden] Liability Insurance

Hi, Julie,

It is on city-owned land? The city (our tax dollars pay for this) has
liability policies already (and the county does, and the public schools)
covering much more dangerous activities than recreational gardening
(highly competitive sports, upkeep and operation of heavy equipment, law
enforcement, jails etc etc).
While you can't change policy in a day, it is very reasonable to ask for
a rider to cover community gardens, even if it means setting some basic
restrictions on gardener behavior. I urge you to be nice about it, but
to at least raise the issue.

You may well get some support from Cooperative Extension in Gaston
County, which is working on community gardens and from - GREAT NEWS!!!
for North Carolina -  veteran community garden supporter and (I
think) past ACGA Board Member Lucy Bradley from Arizona, who is now Dr.
Lucy Bradley, newly arrived on the faculty of NC State with a portfolio
covering Urban Agriculture.

My sense is that, at least here in the Southeast, often liability
policies are a ruse to prevent something new and not well understood,
like community gardens in NC, from gaining a toehold. I've even seen it
here in Charlotte - you might want to chat with June Blotnick, now
director of our Clean Air Coalition, who ran into this same problem with
her community garden on public land (in a park, no less) last year:
director at clean-air-coalition.org

Dorene is right, of course - this list does need a 'how to' guide
covering nuts and bolts (seeds and
roots?) of community gardening. No, one doesn't really exist now,
unfortunately. But, I guess, we all share responsibility for letting
such shortcomings persist, and we all need to roll up our sleeves and
change the situation. Rather than join ACGA's Advocacy Committee (though
it sure would be cool to work with my friend Bobby), maybe some of us
should get cracking on this kind of practical stuff. A FAQs would be a
good start, at least.

Don Boekelheide

who has been doing rain dances in Charlotte for the past 2 days - we
NEEDED it!!!

>----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 19:47:41 +0000
> From: "julie young" <theyoungwoman at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [Community_garden] Liability Insurance
> To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
> Message-ID:
> <BAY120-F203796D2ACDA6BA03553F3A6220 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
> 
> The city that we are leasing the prperty from has asked us to get a 
> million dollars worth of liability insurance. I am sure many of you 
> have done this.
> Any suggestions, estimated cost, wording.
> Julie Young
> West Shelby Community Garden

> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 20:41:02 -0400
> From: "garlicgrower at green-logic.com"
> <garlicgrower at green-logic.com>
> Subject: Re: [Community_garden] Liability Insurance
> To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
> Message-ID:
> 
> 
> Hi, Folks!
> 
> Not that I'm not in "fired up against the Machine"
> mode, but didn't we just talk about this?
> 
> It's ruse -- check the archives for details.
> 
> Now that we have a new ED and a new office in Columbus, shouldn't they

> be putting together a "Best of"
> FAQ out of all of our replies for the website?
> 
> Dorene (not at my computer, so no sig)

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