When participating in normal ringing activities within your home tower you should expect to be covered by the church’s insurance. This cover should include public liability and personal injury. This ought to cover you whilst you are ringing, teaching and carrying out maintenance activities at that church. It is well worth asking your PCC to check the cover.
This cover may also be in place if you go elsewhere to improve your ringing, individually or as a team, but this should be discussed with your PCC. Whatever you are doing you should be competent and be aware of risks and mitigate them as much as reasonably practicable, you should also comply with Safeguarding requirements to ensure cover.
If your church is with Ecclesiastical Insurance then the cover is good and there are helpful notes on their website:
https://www.ecclesiastical.com/documents/bell-ringing-guidance.pdf
https://www.ecclesiastical.com/documents/bell-ringing.pdf
Ringing elsewhere for your own enjoyment rather than “for the benefit of your church” is more complex.
If you are helping out at another church (not acting on behalf of the Guild) then again you should expect that church’s insurance to cover you if there is an accident due to their negligence, e.g., poor maintenance. If you are, say, helping with teaching then it might be reasonable to expect that church to treat you as a volunteer and cover you for public liability and personal injury. If in doubt, check.
The Guild has Personal Accident and Public Liability insurance to cover members and officers in a number of ways and these cover you whilst participating in Guild organised activities – e.g. ringing or teaching at District or Guild organised events. We also have cover in place for working on bells (including carrying out inspections) when this has been arranged through the Guild; to take advantage of this, you must advise the Bell Advice Co-ordinator before the work is carried out, as we have to assess that those carrying out the work are sufficiently competent for the cover to apply. There are lower and upper age limits of 16 and 75 respectively for most of the personal injury elements.
There is cover in place for the Trustees of the Bell Fund and Officers of the Guild (including District Officers) to protect them in case of mistake in the execution of their duties, as well as insurance of the Guild’s property.
If you would like full details of our insurance then please drop the chairman a note.