Insurance for Clubs and Classes: Which Cover a Volunteer-Run Group Actually Needs
Under the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, a club that employs even one paid coach must hold at least £5 million of employers' liability cover, and the HSE's guide for employers sets the fine for going without at up to £2,500 for every day. That is the only policy the law insists on. The rest is about what halls demand and what the committee can afford to lose.
TL;DR
A volunteer-run club is only legally required to insure if it employs someone: then it needs employers' liability cover of at least £5 million and must display the certificate. Almost every club also needs public liability insurance, because halls, councils and pools will not let a space without it. Governing body affiliation often provides that cover, but usually only for registered members, qualified coaches and recognised activities, so check what it leaves out: parent helpers, tasters, socials, equipment and the committee's own liability. Give every policy and coach certificate a named owner and a renewal reminder one month before it expires.
Which insurance is a club legally required to have?
One policy, in one situation.
If the club employs anyone, it needs employers' liability insurance from an authorised insurer, covering at least £5 million. That includes a coach paid through PAYE for two evenings a week, a part-time administrator or a caretaker on the club's payroll. HSE also warns that someone you pay by invoice can still count as your employee for this purpose, depending on how much control you have over their work. The certificate must be displayed where staff can see it, and that can be electronic. Failing to display it carries a separate fine of up to £1,000.
Genuine volunteers are not employees, so a club run entirely by volunteers has no legal duty to insure at all. That is not the same as being safe without it.
Why does every club end up with public liability insurance?
Because the hall will ask. School lettings, council pitch bookings, leisure centre pools and church halls nearly all want to see a public liability certificate before they hand over the keys, and £5 million of cover is the figure they most often name.
Public liability pays out when a member of the public, or a member, is injured or their property is damaged and the club is found to be at fault. A spectator trips over a kit bag left on the touchline. A ball goes through a neighbour's greenhouse. A child slips on a wet changing room floor the club was meant to check. Without cover, the claim lands on the club, and for an unincorporated association that can mean the committee members personally, because the club has no legal existence separate from them.
The Charity Commission's guidance on charities and insurance (CC49) makes the same point for trustees: the committee is responsible for deciding which risks to insure, and for being able to show it thought about it.
What does governing body affiliation cover leave out?
Many national governing bodies include liability insurance in the club's affiliation fee. It is often good cover. It is also often narrower than committees assume, and the gaps tend to sit in the same places:
- People who are not members. Parent helpers, older siblings who help set up, and first-timers at a taster session may not be covered until they are registered.
- Coaches whose qualification or licence has lapsed. Cover for coaching is frequently tied to holding a current award. A coach whose licence ran out in March may have been coaching uninsured ever since.
- Things that are not the sport. Socials, quiz nights, the summer barbecue and a car boot sale to raise funds can fall outside "recognised activities".
- Equipment. Liability cover pays other people. It will not replace the club's boats, bikes, mats or PA system if the store is broken into.
- The committee itself. Claims that the committee made a bad decision, such as a dispute over a member's expulsion, need management liability cover, which affiliation rarely includes.
Get the actual policy wording from your governing body, not the one-page summary, and read the exclusions. It takes an hour.
What does this look like for a real club?
Take Ashdown Juniors, a fictional netball club in Crawley with 64 players aged 8 to 16, five volunteer coaches and one paid coach who runs the Under-14s on Tuesdays and Thursdays through PAYE. The committee assumed the governing body's cover was all they needed.
When the secretary went through it before the September hall renewal, she found three problems. The paid coach meant employers' liability was compulsory, and the club had never held it. Two of the 11 regular parent helpers were not registered members, so they were outside the affiliation cover. And one volunteer coach's award had expired 14 months earlier. The club added employers' liability for the paid coach, registered every helper as a non-playing member, booked the coach onto a refresher course and stood her down from leading sessions until she passed. The extra cost was less than one month's hall hire.
Club secretaries we speak to often describe it the same way: "I'd been signing the hall's form every year saying we were insured. I'd never once read what we were insured for."
Should a club rely on its coaches' own insurance?
No. This is the one position we would hold firmly.
A self-employed coach who runs their own classes should carry their own public liability cover, and professional indemnity if their work involves advice, such as a strength coach writing programmes. Ask for their certificate every year. But a coach's policy protects the coach. If a claim names the club for how it organised a session, booked a venue or vetted a volunteer, the coach's insurer has no reason to pay it. The club needs a policy in its own name, whatever its coaches hold. Leaning on individual policies saves a few hundred pounds and leaves the committee exposed for exactly the decisions it is responsible for.
Which other policies are worth considering?
Personal accident cover pays fixed sums for set injuries, such as a broken limb or loss of teeth, whether or not anyone was at fault. It is not compensation, but for contact sports and adventurous activities it gives an injured member something without anyone having to sue the club. Equipment and contents cover is worth it once the club owns kit worth more than it could replace from reserves. Event cover is worth checking for a one-off tournament or festival with spectators.
Volunteer drivers are a separate question for their own car insurers, and our guide to lift-sharing and transport covers what to ask them.
How do you stop a policy quietly lapsing?
Give every policy and every certificate a named owner on the committee and an expiry date written down where the rest of the committee can see it. Set a reminder one month before each date, because hall renewals and affiliation deadlines rarely line up. Keep a copy of every certificate in a shared folder, not the secretary's inbox, so the club can still prove it was insured if that person steps down. And write each insurance claim or near miss into your accident and incident records: insurers ask for them, and a claim made two years after an injury is only as good as the notes taken on the day.
How does Bitir help?
Bitir does not sell insurance. What it does is stop the dates living in one person's head. Each renewal can sit as a dated task assigned to the committee member who owns it, which shows up as due in their list a month ahead. Coaches' qualification and certificate expiry dates can be held on their profiles, visible to the secretary and welfare officer but not to parents. Certificates can be posted in a committee channel that only committee roles can open, so the next secretary inherits them along with everything else.
Questions committees ask
Does a volunteer-run club legally need insurance?
Only one policy is compulsory, and only if the club employs someone: employers' liability insurance, with cover of at least £5 million from an authorised insurer. A club run entirely by volunteers has no legal duty to insure, but in practice it cannot hire most halls, pitches or pools without public liability cover, and its committee members can be personally exposed if something goes wrong.
Does our governing body affiliation cover everything?
Usually not. Affiliation cover typically protects registered members and qualified coaches during recognised activities. Check whether it covers parent helpers who are not members, taster sessions for non-members, socials and fundraisers, equipment you own, and coaches whose qualification or licence has lapsed. Those are the common gaps.
Do volunteers count as employees for insurance?
Not automatically. The legal duty to hold employers' liability insurance applies to employees, and genuine volunteers are not employees. But a volunteer injured while helping may still claim against the club, so ask your insurer to confirm in writing that volunteers are covered under the employers' or public liability section of your policy.
Should self-employed coaches have their own insurance?
Yes. A coach who runs their own sessions or is paid by invoice should hold their own public liability and, for advice-based work, professional indemnity cover. The club should still insure itself rather than rely on each coach's policy, because a coach's policy protects the coach, not the club or its committee.
Never miss a renewal date again
Put every policy and coach certificate on a dated task with a named owner, keep the documents in a committee-only channel and hand them over intact when the secretary changes.
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