I’m curious to hear from fellow members of the go-karting community about your experiences with insurance policies and rates over the past five years. Have you noticed any significant changes? How have these changes impacted your operations?
In particular, I’m interested in learning about any challenges you’ve faced and the strategies you’ve employed to address them. Have you implemented new safety measures, adjusted your operations, or explored alternative insurance options? And most importantly, have these efforts been effective in mitigating potential risks and maintaining affordable insurance coverage?
Let’s share our insights and learn from each other’s experiences. Your input could be invaluable to others in the industry facing similar challenges. Looking forward to hearing your stories and discussing potential solutions together!
I wish I could be of help… my insurance went up significantly this year
We can compare numbers to start… Our insurance works out to be about 14% of each sale. BUT, we run seasonally on ice… so that changes things a little I’m sure. Of course you can change your premium if you play around with the limits on your policy. We have pretty high limits due to our host and cities’ requirements…
I can share our limits via PM as I’m not sure it’s good to broadcast our coverage levels publicly. Maybe that’s paranoia but I wouldn’t want for facilities to look like lucrative targets for lawsuits.
My understanding is that the most recent high profile fatal accidents have lead to underwriters leaving karting (Both competition and rental)
Some sort of safety best practices\guidelines would probably help.
Derek, no, I don’t sell insurance. I think insurance is a scam, but we have to live with it. Honestly, I work for a track management software company. I won’t say which one because I’m here looking for information only. My job involves finding problems and coming up with solutions for karting tracks. We have identified this issue and are brainstorming to find a solution to reduce overhead expenses for everyone in the US.
We thought having race safety features would help reduce insurance fees, but that is not happening. Some owners told me they had zero accidents last year, but their rates went up 30%. Has anyone convinced an insurance company to reduce their rates because of a new safety feature on the track?
James McMahon, I appreciate your input into this. I don’t need any solid data at the moment, but thank you for the offer.
Side note: James, you said you are being charged a % of each sale. I heard the same thing from other locations. I would have thought it would be based on the mileage or number of races in the year. Does any policy base their rates like that?
Lastly, some owners I work with are talking about pooling their money together and creating their own insurance organization specifically for karting. That’s not a thing yet, but would anyone be interested in something like that?
Which software company? That’s not super cheap either
I can’t say I subscribe to the thought that insurance is a scam perse, but it is a significant amount of our costs at this time.
Thinking more about it, technically our coverage is based on number of “user days” with a minimum premium amount paid upfront. If I assume one user day per customer (ie one session\ticket per customer) then the cost is roughly 14% for all insurances combined including workers comp. Basically insuring each driver for the day, so up selling to multiple sessions can be advantageous. Last year it was about 8% BUT our policy limits were lower.
I’m bearish on a separate insurance company, sounds like it could be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
Was this based on feedback from the insurance companies\underwriters? If so I would expect there would be some specifics outlined.
Calling all go-karting owners and operators! 
I just assumed competition.