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In our experience, the public liability insurance should be purchased to an
amount able to cover reasonable insurance claim arising similarly.  This
insurance is to ensure that the center is properly protected against some
accidents that we cannot avoid.  Whether this claim is reasonable or not is
not the issue of the center but that of the insurance company and may be
that of the court, unless your center would prefer to settle it on your
own.

I do think that whether the insurance company would like to take up the
case depends very much on who caused the knot of the rope undone, and
whether the center had done everything reasonable to check the safety of
the exhibit (including preventive checking and regular maintenance/checking
with records).  If this is done by someone on purpose, then the liability
may become that someone, and in many cases it will be the court or
insurance company decision to decide the quatum of liability between that
someone, the center or others.

I hope that this can help.  Good luck!

Chee-kuen


YIP, Chee-kuen
Chief Curator
Hong Kong Science Museum
(T) +(852) 2732-3201
(F) +(852) 2311-2248
(E) [log in to unmask]
(W) hk.science.museum



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