EURAO - Free Liability Insurance.

I joined EURAO a couple of years ago, because I liked the way it challenged, especially, the very old-fashioned way of doing things amongst the likes of the RSGB and IARU.

After a while, though, I allowed the membership to lapse.

But, this week came an invitation to rejoin EURAO, with a free benefit that is of utterly fundamental importance to anyone who takes a radio out into a public space like a beach, park, and so on: free public liability insurance!

EURAO's insurance covers the costs of being sued if your portable radio goes horribly wrong.

Is this worth the membership fee?  It absolutely is!  All it takes to be sued, if you come across the wrong type of person, is for that person to trip over your invisible radials at the beach and sprain their ankle.  Or that your antenna flops over in the wind, smashing someone's eye glasses in the process.  Even without going out onto the beach, you might poke someone's eye as you take a whip antenna off your car at the roadside.

The possibilities for public liability are truly endless, and something nobody, in my view, should risk exposing themselves to without adequate insurance, simply because the whole business of being sued is ruinously expensive.

EURAO provides 9 million Euro's worth of free liability insurance in exchange for the tiny 10 Euro membership fee.  The RSGB, in contrast, sometimes offers such insurance - but you have to pay for it, despite their membership fee being some £60 per year (well, you can't pay your Managing Director ~£60,000 per year and give members something worth having, can you?)

Well done EURAO for coming up with such an useful and attractive offer.  I've rejoined already! (NOTE: I have not seen the terms of the insurance, and an English text is not yet ready.  Check that the insurance is suitable for you before you join - though it seems you will have to email EURAO directly to find out!  Also, if you pay, as most people will, via Paypal, then you are now setting up an automatic, repeating annual membership.  You can cancel at will, of course.)

Latest announcement on the insurance here.