Public Liability Insurance and MOT Process

Way back in 2015, it was realised that the club may benefit from having a shared PLI policy to cover us for any mishaps when out and about at events and such like. The committee at the time rang around a number of insurance groups and managed to find us a good deal to cover us.

To keep the premium down, it was agreed that we would run annual checks on both the droids and the drivers. This became our current MOT process which has been working well up to now, with the added benefit of being a nice way to round off the build (tho of course we know no droid is ever actually finished!).

Back to the current time and we have a lot more members creating many different types of droids. We are no longer just R2 Builders, but Droid Builders.

To that end, we are looking at extending the MOT process to include other droids. We already have a couple of successful BB8 MOTs under our belt and would love to take on more types, including static displays over a certain height. This will be an ongoing process over the next few years.

Along with that, and the reason for this document, is that we need to streamline the PLI. Its becoming more and more frequent that there isn’t a 1:1 relationship between droids and builders, with many being a family builds and having the potential for multiple people driving.

So this is the proposed implementation:

option 1:

Tier 3 – £10 annual – Static droids and event attendance?.
Tier 2 – £15 annual – Extra driver. You don’t have your own astromech, but you have taken a driving test with another droid so you are cleared to drive at events.
Tier 1 – £25 annual – Full droids. You have a droid (or more) that has passed an MOT.

option 2:

Single flat £20 membership – includes entry to events

Membership is needed to attend events even as a spotter. A number (1? 3?) events can be attended without membership each year to encourage new members.

option 3

PLI *is* attached to the droid, and each droid is £10.
£10 annual membership, includes entry to events.

option 4

Split membership fees and PLI. Allow people to be members, but then pay a different fee for PLI.

As with car MOTs and insurance, the two may not renew at the same time. The MOT is per droid, and PLI is per member.

To be discussed:

Age restriction (13? 14? 16?) – To be allowed to drive droids. Under that age has to be accompanied by adult and may not drive droids in public.
Family plan? I did look at a way to implement this, but it would be a big rewrite and talking to the few people it would work for, they were happy just to pay the standard PLI. (or driver PLI)
Promotions? To get people interested, patches. I know we’ve discussed it many times, but a one off patch for the first droid MOT (and they pay PLI) would go down well. Meeting agenda has idea of a draw for a sideshow collectable. Stickers for droid mots? Not dated, but a role like asset or PAT stickers. MOT officer hand writes the date and gives to droid/operator.
Small droids (39.1, MSE). Do we want a tier for them? (Tier 2.5, just to be ‘funny’). £15?

All up for discussion of course. Extra drivers and age are the questions I get most. Along with small droids.