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, and smaller droids such as MSE and 39.1%. 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:

Static/Spotters/WIP – £10/Year

This covers anyone attending events with static/WIP droids, or as spotters. It allows:

• Entry to event
• Covers for any issues with statics, etc.
• Enables you to drive an MOT’d droid, with owners permission and supervision

PLI is not required for your first two events, or for any builder only events (eg, DBUK or Xmas Party)

Mobile Droids – £20/Year

This is for anyone with mobile droids, including (but not limited to) droids like MSE, 39.1%, etc. This covers

• Entry to event
• Driving droids at events

Other notes:

• PLI is not required for your first two events as spotter/wip/static, or for any builder only events (eg, DBUK or Xmas Party)
• PLI is *always* required to drive a droid
• Minimum age for operating mobile droids is 16, or 13 when under owner/adult supervision.
• Note that some venues do not allow under 18/16 in during setup (eg, Birmingham NEC). We have no control over this.
• When allowing another member to drive your droid, you are responsible for making sure they can drive it comfortably and within acceptable limits (no speeding!).