Working as the General Manager of Trinity-St. Paul’s the past six years, I have seen many non-profit and community groups create gorgeous works of art, major events, life-changing exercise, and learning classes, and meals galore.  It’s been a wonderful, messy melange of community and a great deal of fun.

You know what hasn’t been fun? Ensuring all those groups were insured (ensuring insured, there’s a tongue twister). I get it.  It’s annoying, hard to understand, expensive and takes time. 

Working with Regeneration Works: Places of Faith we encountered the same problem but from the other side. Faith communities that we were helping to create multi-use hubs would ask “if we share our faith-building with others, how can we ensure appropriate insurance?”. It is consistent (and honestly, prudent) refrain.

The fear of applying for insurance, the time it took, the bother, was getting in the way of great not-for-profit and community group collaborations. It was stopping them from being able to use faith buildings to do their work. So I called Steve Beatty at Front Row Insurance. He had helped me to solve a similar problem that independent producers were encountering when I worked at Theatre Passe Muraille. 

And, lo and behold, today we bring you the results of this work! 

Over the past year, Front Row Insurance has developed an insurance solution for third party users of places of faith. It’s for community classes and events, concerts and book launches, meetings and meals… it’s for everything that might happen in a great faith-building hub.  It’s online and (most of the time) immediate. Put in your information, pay, get insurance certificate.  And then?

Front Row Insurance Brokers Inc. is an online event liability insurance program is now available to the Faith & the Common Good network and National Trust for Canada members (together, Regeneration Works: Places of Faith) and their third party user groups. The online event liability insurance policy is available in all provinces and territories in Canada.

A no-obligation quote is available any time of the day or night in less than 3 minutes here: https://www.frontrowinsurance.com/regeneration-works-event-insurance

Up to $5,000,000 in liability insurance is available. Costs arising from injury to guests and staff are insured. The protection in the policy will also cover lawyer costs.

“We wanted to make the insurance process easier, faster and less expensive for people who utilize short term space in faith buildings,” says David Hamilton, President of Front Row. “Given that there is no need to speak to a broker and an insurance company underwriter is not involved, the cost to process online event insurance is much less and we have passed the savings onto the customer of the short term rental. Although the policy is online, we are still available to answer questions by chatbot, email or over the phone.”

Having worked with faith communities across Canada, it has become clear to our two organizations that quick, reliable access to insurance for third party users is a barrier to the sharing of faith buildings. We wish to encourage the broader use of these buildings, so we’ve worked alongside Front Row to devise an online portal to be used by any user of faith buildings. With this tool at their disposal, faith communities should be able to open their space to more good community works.

GO MAKE GREAT STUFF HAPPEN! 

Check it out at www.frontrowinsurance.com/regeneration-works-event-insurance.

Written by: Kendra Fry, advisor to the Regeneration Works: Places of Faith program.