You likely do not need Directors & Officers Insurance - because that is a product to protect the organization FROM the directors & officers in the case of their negligence or wrongful actions. Lots of people mis-understand what D&O insurance is - wikipedia has a fairly good explanation in the first paragraph of the link below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directors_and_officers_liability_insurance

What you likely DO need is a basic liability policy - something to protect the organization, employees, board etc. in cases such as the one you mentioned - if someone slips and falls.

Since you said you do not have any property or collections - it sounds as if you do not have any insurance policy now. You should be able to get a basic liability policy - although that is usually a part of a general business policy that covers property and personal property of the organization - so you may have to shop around or find a local insurance agent who handles business policies for multiple insurance companies to find what options are available where you are located.

Insurance prices vary wildly by region and locality - but you should be able to do much better than $1000. For about $900 - our basic business policy covers liability in our main museum location (a city owned building) as well as the business property, a property we own with a large metal building and an archival storage area within that metal building as well as the business property and liability at that site, and 13.5 acres of land that is a Lewis & Clark historic site (that is considered unimproved for insurance purposes) even though it has numerous signs, a trail crossing it and a parking lot, etc. and liability coverage for programs or events we may hold somewhere else. And FYI we also have a separate collections policy for the artifacts.

So $1000 sounds a bit steep for basic liability. I have not priced actual D&O Insurance so that may be what that quote was actually for.

Chris Taylor
Executive Director
Atchison County Historical Society
P.O. Box 201
200 S. 10th Street, Santa Fe Depot
Atchison, KS 66002
913-367-6238
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www.atchisonhistory.org
Facebook.com/AtchisonHistory

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Hi Listers. We have a conundrum. Our nonprofit serves as a resource for local history organizations in our region and we’ve been debating whether or not we need to purchase Directors & Officers Insurance, which would protect individual board members (of which I am one) in the event we were sued (say, by someone who slips and falls while attending an event we have sponsored).  We put on workshops, conferences, outings and provide resources, but we have neither a building nor collections. In spite of that, we’ve been told we could still be sued.

The quote we’ve gotten for this coverage is $1,000/year, which is roughly half of our annual budget! If we purchase it, we will have to do fundraising to support it, and it won’t even provide programming to our community. Do we really need this?

Does YOUR organization have it? Why did you decide yes or no? Ways to pay less? Any anecdotes to help us decide? Please help!

--Perplexed in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts

--Kathie Gow

Curator, Hatfield Historical Museum     hatfieldhistory.weebly.com

Oral History Producer     wordspicturesstories.com

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