If not, this is something you must ensure you start doing, for example any company which provide a service such as hiring a bouncy castle or even hiring in door staff you need to ensure they have a Public Liability policy and you need to ask for a copy of the documents.
In a recent claim a club was held liable for a child that was injured when they fell off an inflatable slide sustaining multiple injuries, the claim was directed to the company that provided the slide but they did not hold any public liability insurance.
The liability of the club was established following a recent court case of Woodland v Essex CC which relates to a child (Woodland) that was under the care at a local authority school(Essex CC)
The school provided swimming lessons as part of the curriculum. These swimming lessons were outsourced to a company who provided the swimming teacher. During a lesson the child got into difficulties and was under water for an excessive length of time unnoticed which resulted in the child being starved on oxygen.
The parents sued the school for negligence, and the school in turn redirected the claim to the swimming company and they in turn tried to pass the claim to the teacher. As it turned out the teacher held no insurance and neither did the swim company. The outcome following the court case was that the school was responsible as they owed the duty to the child. They should have checked that all relevant people in the chain held the necessary insurance to cover such eventualities and failed to do so.
