Most if not all sororities have regulations against purchasing alcohol with sorority funds or soliciting members for money to purchase alcohol. Also, there are NPC regulations about having alcohol at all on sorority property. When you get into 3rd party vendors, things can get complicated.

Yeah, I know, I just meant......what if they had a registered party? How do they have parties with alcohol if they don't use sorority funds?

That's one of the smartest things about many sororities. They don't allow their chapters to sponsor parties with alcohol. So, the fraternities have to have all of the parties, and our liability insurance rates skyrocket while our sister greeks are able to keep their insurance rates nice and low.

When I was a divisional officer, I saw a lot of information on insurance claims, and a substantial part of the insurance claims on fraternity houses are for damage caused by visitors -- many of them sorority women visiting during parties, etc.

That, plus the liability for "serving" alcohol on your property can be staggering.

That's why there is such a move by Nationals to have parties off-site, third party vendors, etc.

Finally, Delt, and I suspect a lot of other fraternity Nationals, has rules against using chapter funds for alcohol. Whether the chapters obey those rules is another matter.

They have them at third party vendors and everyone pays for their own drinks. That way you are paying for rental of the building, not for the alcohol.

It may be smart insurance wise, but IMO it contributes to an unequal balance of power between fraternities and sororities.

Do you mean like having a social account? I don't know of anyone that doesn't have a social account.

I think everyone has a social account, but it can't be used to buy alcohol -- at least on the record.

Delts also can't have "common containers" such as kegs -- which is another reason to use a third party vendor.

The insurance rules can be tough, but woe to the chapter that breaks them and then has a claim denied because it didn't follow the rules.

Insurance is a pain, but you can't live without it.

yeah, we can have kegs and troughs, but we have to have them behind a table or counter and have people hand them out.

here's a fun tid bit of information for you (just heard this at a risk managment presentation and no it was not greek based, but the guy is a lawyer)

If you have a keg (including party balls, keg-erators and the like) at your house (single family and greek), and something happens, insurance will not cover it. if you drank out of a keg, slipped, fell and hurt yourself, your HEALTH insurance will deny the claim (presenter was not sure if that was all states or not). all because you drank out of a keg. Additionally, if you even have a keg at your house (especially those keg-erators that are so common now) and have a problem unrelated to alcohol, the HOME insurance company can and will most likely deny the claim.

he said it doesn't matter who serves from the keg. This applies unless it is a 3rd party vendor, which kinda helps explain why all the HQ's made the rule.

Thanks gpb. I'm going to copy this to Risk Management as well since I think it's good information.