21st August 2010
Merrywood Rd, Bristol, UK.
To add a thought to yesterday’s post… I just watched a bit of a documentary about Gorillas. Diane Fosse – the ‘Gorillas in the mist’ lady integrated herself into the Gorilla family in small steps. It was, or she called it Habitual Integration. Perhaps if I spent long enough hanging out with the deer they would accept me. Different beast though… But for what it’s worth, it highlights my limited view of the world – blanket covering animals with the same brush…)
Insurance conversation. Talking to an insurer over the phone in the lead up to doing a tree event at Shambala festival. It seems I’ll have to risk it…
Henrik: Uhm, right so uhm, well okay so if I… I’m just trying to think. Hmm, yeah I don’t know how I can really do this then… actually
Insurance guy: Hmm
Henrik: [laughs] Because essentially it’s just climbing trees
Insurance guy: [.overlap] Right
Henrik: Uhm, and I can’t, I can’t plan and like, you know uhm, it would mean climbing every tree in advance… checking every single branch
Insurance guy: [.overlap] Well yeah, you would be responsible to do that. You need to make sure that you know, where the people are going or you know, anything where they are standing, is safe to do so.
Henrik: Yeah
Insurance guy: That would, that would be your responsibility uhm, to do that before they actually, you know you invited them up
Henrik: Yeah and you’re saying that uhm, sorry just, what I said earlier was that, if you climb, if I climb a tree, anyone climbing a tree basically is risking ending up in court, did you say that? Essentially
Insurance guy: Well, well if they have an accident, that’s due to your negligence, yeah they, they could take you to court. You know, I mean a lot of people say to us… well, you know they might just break a finger or you know blah blah blah but you have to look at the worst case scenario if somebody gets severely injured
Henrik: [.overlap] Yeah
Insurance guy: Or paralyzed or in the worst case scenario is killed
Henrik: [.overlap] Yeah
Insurance guy: Then you know, you’re gonna get sued massively uhm and if you go to court and in fact you are found to be negligent
Henrik: [.overlap] Yeah
Insurance guy: And that cause that person’s injury or death uhm you know, that’s where you’re gonna get hit
Henrik: Okay. What if I’m, what if
Insurance guy: [.overlap] And if somebody broke, if somebody breaks an arm or just cuts himself
Henrik: Yeah
Insurance guy: You know on, on a sharp piece of branch that’s been snapped off previously
Henrik: [.overlap] Yeah
Insurance guy: If somebody catches their leg on there I mean you’re still talking you know fifteen, twenty thousand pounds worth of paying.
Henrik: Yeah. So what if I did just risk assessments for (special events?)
Audio ends…
And begins again…
HENRIK : OK, so, um, sorry about that. Um… yeah, you seem to know, um, a lot about, uh, the risks of tree climbing, or is this just, are you just a pro?
Insurance guy: Sorry?
Henrik: you seem to know a lot about the ins and outs of it
Insurance guy: Well, I’m an insurance broker, so it is my job to know that. I don’t know the ins and outs of tree climbing specifically
Henrik: Yeah, yeah
Insurance guy: We’re generalizing on the actual risk and the hazards and what you’re doing to avoid those hazards.
Henrik: Yeah.
Insurance guy: It’s whether you were climbing a tree or, you know, scaling up the side of a building.
Henrik: Yeah…
Insurance guy: It’s all the same at the end of the day.
Henrik: Right. Do you think you could just summarise for me, just very briefly, what I need to give you?
Insurance guy: Um.. I’ll dropped you an email regarding it.
Henrik: Oh, OK.
Insurance guy: Yep. And then once you’ve got that we can, as I say, you know, I can’t guarantee that we’re gonna get a quote,
Henrik: Sure
Insurance guy: But we certainly need to go to the insurers armed with all the information.
Henrik: Cos as soon as you go to them, the first thing they’ll come back and say is “Well, what precautions are they taking?” Um, you know, so…
Henrik: Yeah, because, I mean, there is, there are um, you know, insurances for like um, you know, people who run tree climbing workshops and things like that with like ropes and things.
Insurance guy: Right, yeah.
Henrik: And I know that those kinds of insurances are quite high.
Insurance guy: Yeah, yeah, you see, the premiums are gonna be high because of the risks involved.
Henrik: Yeah.
Insurance guy: So that’s why, so, um, you know, I can’t say that our premium will be any cheaper than that premium, or whether we can get a quote for you anyway, even after you’ve got all the information.
Henrik: Yeah.
Insurance guy: So it’s truly down to you as to whether you wanna gather all the information and once you’ve got it, we would then approach the insurers…
Henrik: Yeah.
Insurance guy: But I can’t say…
Henrik: Sure.
Insurance guy: Oh yeah, we’ve got the information; we’ll definitely be able to get you a quote, its…
Henrik: Yeah. OK. Alright, well I appreciate your um, your time.
Insurance guy: No problem.
Henrik: OK. I’ll um… I’ll, um, well I guess I’ll speak to you soon, or hear from you or email or something.
Insurance guy: Yeah. We’ll drop you an email.
Henrik: Yeah. OK. Thanks a lot.
Insurance guy: Thank you. Goodbye.
Henrik: Cheers. Bye then.
