We currently have liability insurance for the possibility that someone may initiate a lawsuit against us for property damage and bodily injury occurring on our roads. In a recent article, "In Our Backyard", it was stated that the Legislature has provided immunity from lawsuits to association road commissioners and boards for organizational activities. Individual land owners have their own insurance on their properties, so if someone were to initiate a lawsuit for injury or property damage on the road, it would be against the road commissioner or the board. If they are immune from lawsuits by the legislature, it would appear that we do not need our liability insurance. Can you confirm this interpretation? We would appreciate any information you can offer on this. We pay $750 annually for this insurance. We have 1.5 miles of roads.

Todd Tolhurst is right. The immunity the legislature provided is only for officers and directors carrying out the organizational processes of the association. It is not for road work. The reason why this change was seen as needed was that in some instances people were threatening to sue association officers to prevent them from forming and operating a road association. The hope had been to obtain immunity similar to that of charitable organizations, as in volunteers, but that did not happen. There was opposition from the trial lawyers. The result is that 1) associations are still liable for injury due to faulty road work. This can be somewhat mitigated by making sure the association hires a contractor with insurance that will cover same. 2) Uninsured volunteers doing work for the association are best off confining their work to things that are highly unlikely to cause injury -- filling potholes, grading and so on.

So the bottom line is, there is still a need for insurance. What you are paying sounds high and I hear you. You might already know this, but forming as a nonprofit confers a certain amount of limited liability to officers and directors. It is possble to form under both the private ways law and the nonrofit statute. Forming as a nonprofit means a simple annual renewal of the status withthe state, is not all that expensive, and is a cheap form of insurance.

As for commercial insurance, it is a top priority of MARA, in partnership with COLA, to look into the insurance situation and find out whether road association insurance premiums reflect the actual risk to the insurer and not possible bogus cookie cutter formulation. We plan to get going on this in the upcoming legislative year.

I wish we had more on this right now, but nonprofit me, it's a priority.

Thanks for your question.

We are paying about $525 for just under a mile of road-State Farm.

I imagine an attorney would pursue (a) the owner(s) of the road, (b) the people who performed the maintenance, and (c) the people who contracted for and paid for the maintenance.  So, the owners, the contractors and any other residents who pay for the road maintenance.