Insurance for Hosts

My house insurance policy includes cover for visitors and other people such as gardeners, painters etc. This would be cover for any claim they might make against me while on the property. If I needed to claim against them it would be covered by their own insurance. I can see no reason why WWOOFers shoud be treated any differently. It would be intereseting to know what the 200 extra is for - what type of cover would it provide?

My insurance company charges me 300 euro per year for wwoofer insurance. At first I was told that my public liability would cover them since they were voluntary workers but then they started regarding them differently. My employer liability would not cover them since they are not employees so I had no option but to pay up and look cheerful. The insurance company's argument with regard to not covering them under the public liability as voluntary workers was that the wwoofers would in general have no farming experience and so would be more likely to have an accident. The usual voluntary worker on a farm would be a family member or a neighbour that would have more experience.

A lot of wwoofers that I come across do not have specific accident insurance. They have medical insurance alright but that does not take the liability off the host in case of an accident.

I think a lot of hosts do not realise that they might need specific insurance to cover them in case of accident. My own insurance company had never heard of wwoofing so obviously they had not covered the risk before.

To sum up I think that no matter what the cost of the premium you are better off having proper insurance that covers the risk otherwise you could end up loosing your farm or house!!. After all the insurance companies make the rules. I would like to hear other hosts thoughts on this matter as it is SO important.

It may be useful to see what the OVEuropa WWOOFer insurance covers. This policy is for volunteers (WWOOFers), not hosts:

"The policy has been tailor made to suit the needs of volunteers and covers:

Civil Liabilities towards third parties:
Compensation for damage involuntarily caused to third parties, for death, for personal injury and damage to property and effects as a result of an accident.
Third party Civil Liability : up to 1.500.000.oo euro

Accidents:
Compensation for accidents that the insured may suffer:
in case of death : 25.000.oo euro
in case of disability : up to 50.000.oo euro
Reimbursement for medical expenses : up to 2000.oo euro

Illness and medical expenses:
Up to 2000.oo euro for medical expenses, including outpatients and day hospital.
This includes up to 500,oo euro for emergency dental treatment.

Special conditions:
You must be a member of a volunteer association on a recognised volunteer project.
The insurance does not cover the use of mechanised tools apart from strimmers with nylon cutters."

The policy costs 25 euro and includes a subscription to join the association that enables OVEuropa to offer such a reasonable premium. It is actually managed by the WWOOF Italy team who have negotiated with an insurance company.

I am no insurance expert but I assume that insurance for hosts would need to cover a possible claim for negligence after an accident. It seems to me that 300 euro is a high premium, but in John Lett's case it may be appropriate for a large farm. I would not expect premiums to be as high for smaller sites.

We are looking into ways to ensure that WWOOFers have the correct insurance but it should be noted that hosts do have the responsibility of ensuring that their own insurance is in place, and of checking that WWOOFers have adequate insurance. WWOOFers with the OVEuropa policy will have a document posted or emailed to them, with the policy details and the OVEuropa website has very clear instructions about what to do in case of an accident. The last paragraph 'Special conditions' is very important. WWOOFers must not use power tools except as described in the policy.

It would be useful to have more information from other hosts about insurance and any comments you may have.

I have finally gotten my insurance company to clarify why they are charging me 200 euro for wwoofers. My house insurance covers any work done for our private home but as soon as anything is done for the business employers insurance is required. As most of us work from and at our homes it will be extremely difficult to seperate the two.I am still arguing the point with them however as they just quoted 200 euro without asking about what tasks people would be performing or if they had their own personal insurance.