Should everyone be covered by shooting insurance?

All Guns and shoots should have insurance cover and it's down to the shoot captain or owner to decide what's suitable.

By David Frost

Wednesday, 07 July 2010

I run a small syndicate shoot where members can bring a friend each time we shoot. I think it only fair that everybody who comes along is insured and I've asked that, in future, visiting Guns bring proof of insurance (BASC membership etc) with them on the day.

Two members have really objected to this and say that neither they, nor their friends, belong to any organisation and, as such, should be covered by the shoot's own public liability insurance. In my view, that's not the point – or am I (as they say) out of order on this?

Shooting insurance
DAVID FROST
There are lots of good reasons for belonging to one of the shooting organisations. Take your pick from BASC, the Countryside Alliance and the NGO, who all offer a different solution both in terms of member services and insurance.

Your shoot should have its own insurance but that will be mainly to protect the shoot should it have done something wrong.

It won’t necessarily cover an accident caused by one of the guns and for which the shoot could not be held liable – that depends on the wording of the policy.

As the person running the shoot you make the rules. If people don’t like them they can shoot somewhere else.