Proposal 2025-2 – Liability Insurance Resource Trifold 

Submitted by: Region 2 (Greater Western USA), CA1123 (Pacifica, CA, USA), CA1628 (South San Francisco, CA, USA), CA915 (Arroyo Grande, CA, USA), WEB0381 (Arroyo Grande, CA, USA) 

Issue: We propose that delegate volunteers write a trifold on how to provide liability insurance for meetings where venues require it. Delegates will form a committee, research the topic, organize their findings, and create the trifold by the 2026 Annual Business Conference (ABC) for current, newly forming and displaced ACA meetings, Intergroups, and Regions. 

Background: Our primary purpose in ACA is to carry the message of recovery to those who still suffer from growing up in alcoholic and dysfunctional homes. If prospective, displaced, and continuing meetings cannot get or keep meeting space, we cannot carry our message. Intergroups and Regions need to help by supplying information. Since the 1980s, meetings have asked ACA service boards for help. Recent concerns come from meetings in California, Massachusetts, and Washington State. 12-Step program websites in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada address liability concerns. Two problems seem to come up. Start-up, in-person meetings and small meetings do not receive enough 7th Tradition to pay for monthly costs of liability policies to cover damage to buildings and property in them. The other problem is that Insurance Companies need to know the number of meetings they would be covering and how many people attend them each week to calculate a price. It is difficult to provide these numbers for displaced meetings that often lose participants due to a new location as well as prospective meetings that do not yet exist. Preliminary outreach to other 12-Step programs reveals that some of their regional areas do provide umbrella liability for their meetings. These are the larger programs with more attendees and larger 7th Tradition contributions. The insurance agents we have contacted have put out our request for coverage to underwriters for non-profit organizations; so far, we have received no offers. 

Resources/Implementation: The committee of volunteer delegates of the Conference would determine when to meet, how often to meet, who their leaders will be, what their operational rules will be, develop a mission statement, list tasks to explore, collect data and analyze research. By the 2026 ABC, the committee would develop and present a resource trifold on how meetings can individually get liability insurance, and how Intergroups, and Regions can provide umbrella liability insurance for meetings, wherever possible. With volunteers from our worldwide delegates, we will have a far wider outreach for information, personal contacts in 12-Step programs already providing meetings with umbrella liability insurance policies, and established relationships with insurance agents. No costs would be incurred by Intergroups, Regions, or WSO for development or electronic distribution of the trifold. WSO would need to provide a regularly occurring Zoom slot for the committee of volunteers that step up to draft the trifold. 

WSO Analysis: Factors to Consider: 

● We know this has been an issue since 2015. The Member Services Committee, in its 2015 ABC report listed “How do we get meeting insurance?” in its top ten requests from the membership. 

● Internet searches reveal a number of current insurance companies and brokers potentially providing various forms of insurance for not-for-profit groups. Due to the potential for insurers to enter and withdraw from this insurance sector, a trifold may yield dated [inaccurate] information. 

● Keeping current information concerning insurance options may pose a challenge, unless there is either a consistent effort to assure correct information or merely recommending an internet search on the topic.

Reference Links:
Find References linked at the end of the proposal at the ‘clickable links to the Ballot’, at the Ballot Prep Committee webpage at acawso.org/bpc