[comradio-l] Comm Radio station insurance

[Richard Berry]

Hi David,
Whilst you can never guarantee these things, my general advice would rather than concern yourself about insuring yourself you focus on training. If your team are briefed, trained and generally aware this should generally be all you need. A CR station can be sued (see: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/londons-jewish-radio-station-closes-after-galloway-sues-891492.html) but most people would not see it as a good move. Newspapers get sued regularly, but mainly because they deliberately pushing the envelope to get exclusives or attempting to uncover truths that people don't want exposing. Recent changes to libel law do give us more protection, including greater scope around what used to be called fair comment. By All means cost this out, but training costs you nothing and will put you in a good place. Having insurance and not training could actually make things worse should anyone attempt to sue.

Regards

Richard

**Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer, so take this advice from station to another **


Richard Berry
Senior Lecturer in Radio / Spark FM Station Manager
Room 101B, David Puttnam Media Centre,
University of Sunderland, SR6 0DD
(+44) 0191 515 2239

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From: comradio-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk [mailto:comradio-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of David Sharp
Sent: 08 January 2015 12:25
To: comradio-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk
Subject: [comradio-l] Comm Radio station insurance

Hi Community Radio mailing list,

Sorry for the boring post.

I'd like to find out what insurance other Community Radio stations are covered by - and especially what level of cover people would recommend for Professional Indemnity i.e. covering potential libel claims against the station etc..... If indeed you are all covered by this..... perhaps some stations just have basic business/charity insurance?

As I have a tight budget (don't we all?) I am trying to balance my insurance spend against risk. While libel damages can potentially be large (mainly due to legal costs), presumably the amount of times Community stations have been taken to court is zero or very low.

I'd be interested to read any info on libel cases against Community stations, and your advice on what amount of Professional Indemnity cover to pay for (and what your premium is)

I'll ask an interesting question about jingles next time, promise !

Dave
--
Dave Sharp
General Manager
105.9 Academy FM Folkestone & 107.8 Academy FM Thanet
Mobile: 07811 407635
Folkestone office: 01303 721059 (Ext.4)
Internal Folkestone Academy: x2499
Ramsgate office: 01843 808234

dave.sharp at academyfmfolkestone.com<mailto:dave.sharp at academyfmfolkestone.com>

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