Cohousing-L Mailing List: Cohousing community work and Insurance

[Syndallas Baughman (syndallas]

Hello All,
Happy New Year!  I am a member of Great Oak Cohousing in Ann Arbor.  I’ve lived 
here for 5 years now with my two sons.

I have been working with our Finance and Legal Committee to review our 
insurance and I’m reaching out to you for some experience/ideas.

What kind of insurance coverage does your community have for members hurt in 
the course of performing community work?  Have you ever had a member hurt 
during community work and seek compensation?

Great Oak Cohousing has a community work program that ranges from about 9-11 
hours per month.  We require(sort of) all adult members to work in the work 
system.  This includes owners and renters.  We encourage kids and teens to join 
in the work system as well.  We also allow members to request reduced to no 
hours as long as they provide a reason they are not working that season to the 
work committee.  The reasons are shared with the community.

We currently have a standard insurance package from State Farm.  Our agent has 
told us that our insurance currently will not cover anyone who is hurt in the 
course of performing work for the community.  Our agent has stated that there 
is a possibility a renter might be covered if they can establish negligence in 
the course of their injury under our liability policy.

We perform all sorts of jobs- cook four community meals a week,  snow plowing, 
changing light bulbs on two story ceilings, landscaping, lawn mowing, etc...

I’ve manage a self insured workers comp system for my manufacturer employer and 
have talked to enough employment law/ workers comp  lawyers  about our work 
program to know that we are in a real grey area in terms of our work program. 
An individual’s medical insurance could fight coverage of an injury if it 
happened during the course of compulsory community work.  If a member was hurt 
during the course of community work to the point that they had medical bills 
that were not covered by their insurance or didn’t have medical insurance 
and/or couldn’t work at their job jobs it’s quite possible they would have a 
strong case to come back to the community for compensation.  The costs of 
paying medical bills or wages for a cohousing member hurt during the course of 
community work could be a real hit.  We should have some kind insurance 
standing between the injured members costs and the HOA’s pockets.  


Another agent is suggesting two other options
1) a volunteer/participation insurance that would cover some medical bills- but 
then the work program would have to be explicitly voluntary with waivers and 
what not acknowledging the voluntary nature of the work.  

or 
2) some kind of workers comp insurance that would only cover medical bills 
because we do not pay wages.  He considers finding an underwriter for this a 
long shot but a possibility.


So please.

Tell me what you know!

Thanks for your thoughts,

Syndallas