Do BMABA Students Have Insurance For Third Party Events?
We get asked this a lot, and the honest answer requires a bit of context. Because the real issue here isn't whether BMABA's student cover is good enough. It's that many event organisers are asking for something that simply doesn't exist in the way they think it does.
Understanding What Student Public Liability Insurance Actually Does
Student public liability insurance covers third party claims. That means if your student causes injury to someone else, or damages property, there is cover in place. What it does not do, and what no association's student PL policy does regardless of what they might claim, is provide personal accident cover for the student themselves if they get hurt competing.
This is not a BMABA limitation. It is how public liability insurance works, full stop. Any association telling you their student public liability cover protects competitors from personal injury at events is either mistaken, or there has been a miscommunication somewhere about what cover is actually needed.
Who Is Actually Liable At An Event?
The event organiser is liable for incidents that occur within their event. That responsibility sits with them, and it cannot be transferred to a student's PL policy no matter how many licences they collect at the door. When an organiser requires students to hold insurance, it does not protect the organiser from a serious injury claim. It simply isn't how liability works.
The requirement for students to hold a licence or insurance at a third party event is often presented as a safeguarding measure. In reality it is frequently a way of appearing to manage risk without genuinely doing so.
If An Event Asks For A Student Licence
If an event organiser asks your students to show a licence or proof of insurance, the first step is simple. Show them your BMABA student licence. Many organisers will accept this without question, and if they do, you're done.
Some events may require students to be listed on their own policy rather than yours. If that is a genuine requirement rather than a money-making exercise, the cost should be nominal. At BMABA we can add non-member participants to event cover for £2.50 per student. Not £25. Not £50. If your students are already on your club roster and your club qualifies for free event cover, there may be no additional cost at all.
Do not let events use insurance language to profiteer. If you are being quoted large per-head fees simply to attend a competition, that is not a legitimate insurance requirement. It is a revenue stream dressed up as compliance. Nothing wrong with an event charging their own fees for entry to the event, but it should be transparent, and not positioned as an insurance short-fall.
What If You Disagree But Still Want To Attend?
Sometimes an event organiser is simply wrong about what cover is needed, but they have set their own conditions and you have to decide whether to accept them if you want to participate. That is a practical reality, not a reflection of your cover being inadequate.
If you attend under their conditions, that is your choice. It does not mean BMABA's cover has failed you. It means an event organiser has set an unrealistic or commercially motivated requirement that the wider industry has not yet pushed back on hard enough.
This Principle As An Example
Think about what it would actually mean to insure a student to compete in a full contact competition for a couple of pounds per head.
Insurance works by spreading risk across a large pool of people, most of whom will never claim. That shared risk is what keeps premiums low. The moment you attempt to insure against something that is almost certain to happen, the entire model breaks down. It is no longer a risk. It is a near-inevitability.
In a full contact competition, injury is not an unlikely outcome that the policy might have to respond to one day. It is an intrinsic part of the activity. Competitors expect contact. They expect to be hurt. In many cases they are actively trying to apply controlled force to another person within the rules of the sport. No responsible underwriter can price cover for that at a nominal per-student fee, because the claims would be near-certain and the premium would never come close to covering them. This is precisely why genuine fighters insurance, which is proper personal accident cover for competitors in contact sports, can cost upwards of £1,000 - £50,000 per event for full contact participants. That price reflects the actual, honest risk involved.
So what does this mean for your BMABA student cover?
Your students' BMABA insurance is still in place when they attend a third party event. We are not saying it switches off at the door. What we are saying is that in the context of a contact competition, it is unlikely to respond in any meaningful way, because student public liability insurance covers third party claims, not personal injury to the student themselves.
If your student injures someone else or damages property, there is cover. If your student gets hurt competing, that is not what this policy is designed for, and it would not be for any other association's equivalent policy either.
The cover is there. It is just not the cover that anyone involved in a contact competition actually needs, and that is not a reflection of its quality. It is simply a reflection of what it is.
In Summary
Your BMABA student insurance is comprehensive, properly underwritten by AXA XL via Lloyd's, and includes member-to-member cover confirmed in writing. What it cannot do, and what no policy can do, is act as personal accident cover for competitors or substitute for an event organiser's own duty of care.
If you are unsure about a specific event's requirements, get in touch and we will help you work through it.