|
Insurance will typically be dictated by the bank holding the mortgage on the house- and/or by the Housing Corp of alumni who are involved in the purchase/ongoing financing of the house. Thus, quite a bit of coverage is required regardless of how well it covers specific incidents.
And it does cover some important things. It could cover an accident that resulted in a fire, a guest slipping and breaking an arm at a party etc.
However, I have yet to see the insurance policy that covers any damages resulting from an illegal act, or an act that is specifically precluded in the insurance policy.
And even if you do not have a copy of your chapter's policy to read, it is pretty easy to figure out which things might not be covered based on your HQ's and chapter's house rules.
For example, a big house rule these days is that noone is to ever go on the roof of the fraternity house- drunk or sober. This is because over the years there have been many falls from rooftops that led to serious injury or death. I have personal knowledge of one such incident where the insurance did not cover the civil damages.
I would expect insurance is also why most, if not all, GLOs ban on underage alcohol possession in chapter houses- some of them going a step further and declaring the chapter house will be substance-free at all times for all members.
Granted, I am sure many HQs have cracked down on alcohol in chapter houses out of a sense of concern for active brothers- but the degree of that crackdown (often including members of drinking age) is surely driven by insurance concerns.
Finally- and another big one- is closed parties with security. I have always felt parties at houses should be closed (meaning you can invite others, but they have to present an invitation or be on a list at the door), and during my undergraduate days there was a situation at one chapter house where an open party resulted in an alleged date rape. No charges were ever filed against the alleged rapist or the chapter- but it did get publicity and in the end it turned out that the alleged rapist and his alleged victim had no ties to that chapter.
And sure enough, many chapter insurance policies contain clauses about closed parties for a good reason.
PS- Don't worry, I don't think you sound stupid as you expressed in your post. It is very counter-intuitive to imagine that an expensive insurance policy will have riders that exclude coverage for many of the things you buy insurance for in the first place.
Just look at homeowners and flood insurance. Flooding has long been excluded from insurance policies and there has been a raging fight with insurance companies along the Gulf Coast as to whether homes destroyed by Katrina and Rita were damaged by hurricane (covered) or by flooding (not covered.) The political reality is that the insurance companies are going to have to cover these damages, but it is kind of frightening that there is a fight about it in the first place.
|