ATHRA Insurance Update — May 2022

May 6, 2022 | Insurance

Insurance
As an update to my last Insurance Update (dated December 2021), ATHRA and Marsh have continued to roll out more competitive insurance policies (both premiums and policy wording) to ATHRA members. The insurances that are currently being sourced and placed at competitive premiums include:
  • Public Liability Insurance (PLI)
  • Association Liability Insurance (or Directors Insurance)
  • Voluntary Workers Insurance
ATHRA and Marsh are helping groups save even more money buy packaging up the three insurance policies. Some examples of what ATHRA members have saved include (members names have been excluded for privacy reasons):
  • PLI — Existing Aon policy $10200 reduced to $2541 with the Marsh/ATHRA policy. $7659 saving.
  • PLI — Existing policy $4750 reduced to $1925 with Marsh/ATHRA policy. $2825 saving.
  • PLI — Existing policy $52250 reduced to $47500 with Marsh/ATHRA policy. $4750 saving.
  • PLI — Existing policy $10261 reduced to $8455 with Marsh/ATHRA policy. $1806 saving.
  • PLI — Existing policy $9044 reduced to $4820 with Marsh/ATHRA policy. $4224 saving.
  • And the list goes on

Testimonial #1

“ANGRMS is extremely happy with our new Public Liability Insurance through the ATHRA group scheme using Marsh as the broker and Canopius as the insurer. The cost saving is significant and puts the PI insurance back at a level we can afford and is more reflective of our risk level.

 

We were very pleased with Marsh’s approach (obviously ATHRA and Canopius were also involved) in tailoring the insurance to heritage railways rather than lumping us in with some other general category which meant the insurance now reflected the actual risks. It was also great that they sought clarification where needed, as well as happily answering/clarifying any queries we had. This gave us a lot of confidence in this scheme.

Something often overlooked is by making the insurance cost more realistic (and obviously taking into account the varying risk levels etc) is that if insurance gets too high then groups either fold up or start only doing essential maintenance rather than also working to improving the standard of their assets. Improving the standard of your assets has the flow on effect of reducing the risk to the insurer.

We would happily recommend this ATHRA/Marsh/Canopius group insurance scheme and look forward to other similar group schemes in the future for other insurances like Volunteers insurance, directors insurance etc.”

Terry Olsson
President
Australian Narrow Gauge Railway Museum Society (ANGRMS)

Testimonial #2

“Under the previous arrangements for public liability insurance for the Steam Tram and Railway Preservation (Co-Op) Society, we were quoted $5,500 including GST for 2021-22. The figure quoted by the ATHRA arrangement is $2,073.50 for $20M coverage. A significant saving for a small organization!”

Grant Robinson
Secretary
Steam Tram and Railway Preservation Society (Co-Op) Society Limited
trading as the VALLEY HEIGHTS STEAM TRAMWAY

To date 24 groups have asked for renewal terms, 9 groups have had insurance placed, 2 groups missed the deadline and will join next year and the remainder we are waiting to hear back from as their renewal date is over the coming months. These remaining groups have been provided terms and all but one are more competitive than their current insurers and we are confident they will take up the Marsh/ATHRA policy.

By now your state coordinators should have made contact with each and every ATHRA member to find out when your renewal dates are for the above-mentioned policies. ATHRA does not have this information and we require this to ensure we have a quote to you at least 30 days prior to your policy renewal date. Marsh simply cannot issue quotations for all ATHRA members that have applied in one go as by law new information needs to be gathered not more than 60 days prior to the renewal date. However, if you would like an indication of what your premium would be, you can simply write to me with updated insurance details and we would be happy to provide you with an estimation.

 

However, we ask that ATHRA members DO NOT use the Marsh quote to better their own current premium as this will just undermine all the hard work ATHRA has done. We are counting on getting at least a 70% uptake in the PLI so that the system stays viable for ALL ATHRA members.

 

Marsh will continue to roll out letters of offer (aka quotes) 4-8 weeks before your policy is due to be renewed. Should you wish to get a quote earlier so that you can look at changing across to the new policy early (aka cancelling your existing policy to get a better rate) then please email me and I will forward your request to Marsh.

 

Our next task is to seek competitive terms for the excess layer of insurance. That is $20M+ coverage. We are currently negotiating with market for the handful of ATHRA members requiring this level of cover ($20-50M layer). We are quietly confident that we will be able to negotiate competitive excess liability options for the groups requiring this. Placement of this layer has been harder than anticipated.

As you can see there has been quite a considerable amount of work done and I can assure you it took far longer than both ATHRA and Marsh had anticipated but we not only got there but we have achieved a great result-. In fact, the small ATHRA membership fee is well outweighed by the significant savings on PLI insurance.

 

I encourage ALL T&H Rail Groups across Australia to not only join ATHRA and take advantage of the cheaper insurance but also the other emerging benefits of ATHRA (ATHRA training, marketing, promotions etc.).

 

Remember, united we are stronger than fighting alone.

Report by
Paul Rollason
ATHRA Deputy Chairman
Board Member – Insurance – Association of Tourist & Heritage Rail Australia Inc
.