Hello ThinkTank,
Earlier this year I helped the organization I volunteer with, The Bike House (thebikehouse.org) to search for general liability insurance. The motivation was the offer of a free space, but we needed to have insurance. At the time, we were an unincorporated group, no 501c3 status, small budget, no employees, etc. I did a bunch of searching. The League of American Bicyclists said that their program is really just for bike ride clubs and advocacy groups, not for co-ops. A lot of the insurance options only work if you are 501c3, which we were not. While we eventually found insurance that works for us (for now anyway), the experience led me to believe that there is a gap in insurance options for small/newish community bike repair groups.
To address this gap, I would like to work with the League of American Bicyclists or other national group to come up with a plan that would work for community bike repair groups. They are going to want to know that there are interested groups out there. So I am throwing this out there - would you or your group be interested in helping to shape a plan and possibly purchasing it in the future if it met your requirements?
There are a lot of possible variables - groups with space or without space, groups with employees or without, groups that work with kids or don't, groups that just do teaching and repairs/groups that also do rides or other activities. I may send out a survey later if there is significant interest to start to get a sense of what requirements are most common.
(Also: I just updated/expanded the insurance article on the bike collectives wikihttp://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/index.php?title=Insurancewith new info from our search. I hope you all like it)
best, Jameel