Jeff,
Please cite the case(s) in which anyone has ever SUCCESSFULLY sued for wrongful death after having agreed to participate and/or signed a waiver? I think you'll find it's never happened without gross negligence in an activity like ours and even in activities far less risky by perception. The simple proof is in a hockey puck at an NHL game. There's a dead girl's parents somewhere in Phildelphia wondering why they challenged those statutes and an attorney licking his wounds for the costs he thought he would recover. Get on WestLaw. Find the case that justifies our over insuring. We're protecting against a precedent that has been proven time and time again will not be established. The last place an ambulance chaser wants to be is at an SCCA event. It's a money loser.
As far as what we have to protect? A name? History? We lost that a long time ago. We've got loans, leases and a mish mash of pretty much worthless assets. The brand has become relatively worthless. It produces less revenue than many of us make in a year. What sells is racing and the community. That would not disappear with a reorganization. But it is under the heavy hand of officials and corporate mismanagement. What you fail to realize is that the risk return we currently operate under makes no sense. I think forty years of history provide more than enough data to make a pragmatic business decision on insurance. What we are doing is the equivalent of insuring a non running Yugo for $100K a year on the chance that a tornado will lift it onto an innocent bystander two towns away and we will get sued for a wrongful death... and being subjected to a $50K settlement. At some point you must draw a line. Most of us pay for insurance at a rate of over 100 times the liabilty risk on an annual basis. SCCA pays 7 times with a deductible that basically amounts to the payouts per year. Did you know that the average SCCA payout is WAY less than the average auto insurance payout and considerably less than homeowners? Imagine paying $47,000 a year for your auto insurance per year, because that's what we're doing. Think about that one... please.
What is not pragmatic is over insuring to protect the throngs of officials, directors and officers we've created who shed every last ounce of credibility and accountability on a fat insurance deal. I also remain suspicious of where that money goes because it's just too much. Insurance and liability are convenient terms that scares everyone and I fear it's being used inappropriately, but we'll save that.
If SCCA went under which it probably will anyway, it would be no big deal. Just as we did in the fifties, it would start up again with drivers with ambitions to road race. I'm constantly reminded of this by a single event. Moroso a few years back. Funny because I was supposed to meet Steve Johnson there. Anyway, no workers or officials signed up and Stevie bagged out also. They were all at a pro race in St. Pete. I'm not sure who it was but I thin it might have been Mike Cox, a regular here and big IT particpant, rallied the drivers. End result was not a cancellation but the best event I think I ever attended. At least the most fun hassle free weekend I can remember in 25 years of racing.
You may think SCCA is a name but it isn't. A brand is only as good as the awareness and revenue it creates. Ask someone on the street if they ever heard of it. Ask ten, a hundred. Go to a car show. Ask there. You'll be mystified with the results. Change the name tomorrow and you won't lose more than a handful of members. It is an organzation of virtual anonymity and private involvement. The brand has little or no value other than those who operate under it currently. It is in essence a private label offered to regular customers in a closed market.
I see the insurance as the ultimate brand killer. The money that could be garnered from that private label could be readily expanded. Sure enough, that comes with risk. But it's worth it if not simply to protect the private label. We cannot continue to pay out $2 million a year for risk management and insurance alone coupled with the enormous overhead of Topeka if we expect to survive. If YOU had any real life experience you might be able to see the business necessities required. Turn cost centers into profit centers. This is something we're not very good at doing. As a matter of fact, we're experts at creating cost centers. A result of having people in charge who don't run companies, don't have bottom line reposibilities or accountability and generally like to work with other people's money as if it were their's to use... without accountability.
We lack any significant responsible corporate governance and we certainly overpay for poorly implemented administration with expenses running without controls. Insurance is simply the first place to make a change because it offers the greatest potential return and savings. If you have a better solution for fixing our financial problems, which BTW Topeka has long denied but now admits are very real, please... I'm all ears.
if what we pay for that coverage is much higher than what other organizations pay for similar coverage.
Yea... we need 37 officials at an event. Pay the workers. With $2 million you could do some real damage to that premise that no workers would show up. And what workers do you know that are targets for a personal injury atorney? You have no idea what you're talking about. THere's no attorney in his right mind that would attempt suing a judgement proof worker. What are you going to get? Your attitude is what fuels this over insurance. You gonna' sue some guy for his 91 GMC van and mortgaged house? Good luck. How many of our workers are raking in a couple million a year? No offense but it just isn't realistic. So what. We lose all of the workers worth more than a couple of million dollars. Find me three. 
