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Using USA-WS insurance 24/7

SkidentSkident Posts: 19 USAWS Official
in Rules/Politics/Issues
The insurance that comes with the USA-WS membership only works with a sanctioned event. Therefore, to make it work for you, whether you are a tournament skier or not, requires a few steps.
In order to demonstrate the steps consider a group of skiers (4) who meet 2-3 times/week for skiing. In order to use the insurance value of their membership, here is what they should do:

1. Three of the 4 would need to be full active members of USA-WS at $80 each.
2. These 3 could be President, Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer of an Affiliated Club. (You need a club to sanction a practice – see #7 below)
3. The cost to register an Affiliated Club is $100.
4. The other one can register as a Grass-Roots member at $35 each (However, Grass-Roots members CANNOT get a Driver’s rating).
5. The three full active members can get a Trained Drivers Rating - $21($29.50 with 30% discount) for the online course and $12.50 each for an MVR check.
6. The practical test of the Trained Drivers course requires a Regular or Senior Driver to check, so the three candidates would need to find someone who can help here; “bribing” costs unknown but probably zero.
7. Sanction the practice using the Club ID and password. Sanction for 1 April through 30 November 6 a.m. to 9 p.m each day. No cost here, just keyboard time.

Total cost? $475.00. This will give you secondary accident insurance ($1000 deductible and a limit of $10,000) plus liability coverage of up to $2 million depending on the liability.

If the 4 individuals split the cost evenly that is $118.75/person/season. If all 4 became trained drivers then the cost would be $138.50/person/season. All of this assumes that the group that skis together stays together. You can play with the numbers further; e.g. a rated driver would not have the online course expense and could check off the others, etc.

Everyone needs to put this in the context of their own lifestyle. What is your primary insurance? Do you need a secondary and so on. For some, this could be a very nice VALUE. What are your thoughts about this?

Comments

  • KelvinKelvin Posts: 1,331 Mega Baller
    For an active club that already hosts tournaments, many of these costs are already incurred. It's a no-brainer to sanction the practices for little, if any, additional costs. Done at LOK.
    Kelvin Kelm, Lakes of Katy, Katy Texas
  • sunperchsunperch Posts: 295 Crazy Baller
    @Skident‌ what about your guests who you want to bring out to the lake? The USA-WS insurance would not cover any incidents where a guest is involved. We have a club of 50+ members, I cannot figure out a way to make it work to have 20+ drivers become trained drivers. Our club is already an affiliated club and sanction our practices but the insurance will probably only work during tournaments as that is the only time we can fulfill all the stipulations.
    scotchipman
  • lpskierlpskier Posts: 3,782 ★★★Triple Panda Award Recipient ★★★
    The real elephant in the room is coverage for clubs that ski public water. My concern isn't the skiers I ski with, it is the skiers that use the course (or soon to be the jump) without being members. Since its public water, I have no (enforceable) way of telling other folks that they can't use the course, or require them to sign a release, or anything else.

    The solution is SPORTINSURANCE.COM Contact Wanye Feinberg, (518) 891-2020, [email protected] . He is out of his office this week at a wedding but will be back at work May 5. It doesn't help USAWS at all, which is a shame as we should be doing everything we can to support it, financially and otherwise, but how can you ignore identical (or better) coverage at a very affordable price with none of the hassles pointed out by @Skident
    John Wilkins- Si non pro sanguine quem ludus ne. #iskiconnelly
    scotchipman
  • 501Brandon501Brandon Posts: 144 Baller
    Our club is having this issue. As only 1 of our members has a Driver rating of any type none of the other members can drive and have the insurance be valid. I asked in an earlier thread about insurance program options and this was what was prompting the question. Do any clubs use anything other than USAWS for club insurance?
    We do not use a club boat, so we already require a 500K liability on each boat used and USAWS Active memberships for each skiing member and family members that ski(which are useless unless you ski tournaments since the policy is no good without driver rating). We also affiliate the club and from what I can tell all it does is put our email address on the website and make us eligible to purchase a policy that is no good without the driver training.
    Any suggestions are welcomed... I am at wits end trying to arrange things and sort all this out...
    Brandon Atkinson
  • SkiKolbSkiKolb Posts: 121 Baller
    See above, sportsinsurance.com End of story
  • 501Brandon501Brandon Posts: 144 Baller
    @SkiKolb Thanks for the tip, I went through the application process this morning... Will see what they have to say.
    Brandon Atkinson
  • sunperchsunperch Posts: 295 Crazy Baller
    @501Brandon‌ We were having the same issues with our club. We just signed up for insurance through Wayne and sportsinsurance.com. The only stipulation for the insurance was everyone has to sign a waiver and your club has to have a procedure in place for getting the waivers signed and stored. They are very easy to work with and 1/3 the price of the lake liability insurance offered by USA-WS.
  • AggieSkierAggieSkier Posts: 200 Baller
    edited April 2014
    Everyone needs to put this in the context of their own lifestyle. What is your primary insurance? Do you need a secondary and so on.

    Talking about the medical coverage, USA-WS offers secondary medical coverage. It kicks in only after the Medical coverage from my Boater's Insurance is exhausted. The Boat-US basic boat policy includes $5,000 medical coverage (per person per incident). Family members receive $25,000 of medical coverage (per person per incident). See attachment. These limits can be raised for a small increase in premium.

    If you are injured skiing, don't forget about filing through your boat policy. I don't see a deductible on my policy and I am no expert. Check with your agent.
  • SkidentSkident Posts: 19 USAWS Official
    To Sunperch and others: please don't mix personal insurance with site insurance. Site policies often have a small amount of medical coverage as do boat policies. They all need to be tapped in case of an injury. What I have outlined is a way to use the USA-WS personal insurance available through a membership. For site insurance, sportinsurance.com may have a good deal; we all need to check it out.
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