Insurers are not the bad guys

by Garry Booth

It’s an all too common story. Insurers stopping a harmless activity or traditional event because of concerns over ‘compensation culture’ and the fear of being sued. If it’s not Santa being banned from riding his sleigh through a town, it’s pantomime dames being banned from throwing sweets into the audience.

These recent stories from the papers, and many others, paint a poor picture of insurers: spoilsports, jobsworths, destroyers of tradition and preventers of fun. But like much maligned health and safety officers, insurers are being unfairly targeted.

Many of the stories are apocryphal, or nothing to do with insurance. And in other cases, the insurers are not banning the event or action, they are simply not covering it.
Take the panto story. The theatre’s public liability insurers said that it probably wouldn’t be covered in the event of someone getting hurt because throwing a sweet would be viewed as an act of negligence rather than an accident. The theatre scrapped the practice because it was worried that it would be sued and would have to pay the compensation itself.

The health and safety sector has suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous slurs for years. Health and safety is often used as a way of pushing through unpopular decisions and sometimes has become a handy scapegoat.

But the sector is fighting back. The Health and Safety Executive has begun a Myth of the Month feature on its website which explains that stories such as children being made to wear goggles to play conkers, workers being banned from putting up Christmas decorations in the office, and trapeze artists required to wear hard hats, are all made-up stories with not a grain of truth.

Other health and safety organisations are also fighting back. Ray Hurst, President of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), recently called on the media to stop claiming his profession wants to ban Christmas. He explained that health and safety ‘has had the fickle finger of blame pointed at it for banning Christmas lights and firemen from climbing ladders, to the cancellation of bonfire night and the changing of street names’. Mr Hurst said: “I want to smash these myths that health and safety stops you doing things. It’s simply not true to say we stop kids playing football, tag or conkers – we’re about helping things go-ahead, showing the green light and giving the thumbs up. And we do all that while keeping people harm-free, well and happy.”

In other words, health and safety organisations have gone on the offensive, taking a pro-active role in explaining what they do – and more importantly – what they don’t do. It has also acknowledged the role of the media in shaping public perception, and has created its own positive health and safety stories – such as the extensive media coverage gained by IOSH entering a team in this year’s World Conker Championships, to counter all the ‘bonkers conkers’ stories.

Insurers need to take the same proactive approach in order to counter all those stories of insurers being spoilsports. Insurers must blow their own trumpet and show the positive side of insurance – how it allows events to go on, allows films to be made, allows people to do daft things for charity, to protect people from ‘compensation culture’ and to have fun knowing that unforeseen consequences are protected against.

At this time of year, when the ‘meanie insurers’ stories in the media reach their peak over Santas, pantos and Christmas decorations, it is perhaps time for insurers to make a New Year’s Resolution: to show how insurance allows people to have fun, not stop it.