Insurance for Testing

[Allen]

Hi all,

I was wondering... for those teams that test your vehicles on someone else's property, what insurance carrier do you use? Is there an insurance company out there that deals with lots of FSAE teams? Any insurance companies that sponsor FSAE teams?

We struck a deal with this guy for a fat piece of land to test on, but we need an even fatter insurance policy to use it. So close... I can almost taste the rubber!! Thanks in advance for any input!

[Allen]

Hi all,

I was wondering... for those teams that test your vehicles on someone else's property, what insurance carrier do you use? Is there an insurance company out there that deals with lots of FSAE teams? Any insurance companies that sponsor FSAE teams?

We struck a deal with this guy for a fat piece of land to test on, but we need an even fatter insurance policy to use it. So close... I can almost taste the rubber!! Thanks in advance for any input!

[Denny Trimble]

We're covered by our school's "risk management" policy. If your school has a sports program, they probably have insurance. Get ready to wade through the beaurocracy...

[jonno]

We're on Brunel's Select Public Liability policy which is quite comprehensive, how ever as Denny said, be prepared for the beaurocracy. Also bear in mind you only ever find out the extent of your cover when you go to make a claim. Hopefully you won't have to, but it's worth making sure it's as comprehensive as possible and tthat all eventualities are covered....

[fsae racer]

If your not so concerned about the actual coverage of issurance and are only concerned about it bc your sponsor is requiring it, then convince your sponsor to either allow you to sign the waiver of liability that we sign at competition and every SCCA event for everyone that will be out there, or have them draw up their own. Our sponsor, the Gainesville Regional Airport did both last spring when we were in the exact position you are now. They wanted insurrance, and we knew that there was no company in their right mind that would insure a bunch of engineering students designing a death trap, not to mention the fact that we were not about to drop a rediculous amount of cash on insurance, when we can barely afford all the essential costs. So we all signed both waivers, we keep the airport well informed everytime we are on there premises, and we have a beautiful test facility with no insurance on an almost worthless vehicle anyway. Seriously, how much do you think you could actually sell one of these vehicles for?

[jonno]

I don't really think that is the right attitude, fsae racer, sure it's sort ofcovering your back, but we test at a facility used occasionally by mclaren (last time we were there there were two slr's cruising round, and ES motorsports had their 550 maranello LM there as well) Despite having a waiver of liability, I don't think people would be happy if something went wrong on the car and we crashed into one of those three.
In fact, the unthinkable did happen to Brunel Racing two summers ago. One of the guys leaving the team was driving an old FSAE car at Silverstone. He was driving too fast in an area that was supposed to be a slow speed area, lost control due to a sticking throttle and hit a road car with considerable force head on. Due to the low vehicle size of an FSAE car the first thing that stopped him was the sump of the Skoda which he hit. I joined the team a few weeks after this occured, and the aftermath was pretty severe. Despite being comprehensively covered there was obviously a lot of grief. Now imagine that he had hit a person rather than a £10,000 road car... It is an unthinkable event, but i would like to be comprehensively covered for all eventualities. As Denny said, most universities will have a comprehensive public liability / risk management insurance, I would strongly advise into looking into it. <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Seriously, how much do you think you could actually sell one of these vehicles for? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> it's not about getting money back if you damage your car, it's the third party

[Andy Pate]

We have formed a motorsport society within the students union, everyone who is involved in formula student has to join this society and means that everyone is covered on the students union policy.

Advantages are that we pay nothing for our insurance, we are covered wherever we test and there is no beaurocracy or red tape. YOu might want to investigate this at your university, hope this helps!

Andy

[Allen]

Thanks guys for your input. Jonno's right, we can't skip out on insurance. Our sponsor also requires that we have insurance even though we have a waiver of liability. It's just policy for them I guess, and we don't want to piss them off. I'll be sure to let the team president know and tell him to look into a school policy.