Huge insurance hikes are like ‘putting a bomb under business’

The owner of the country’s biggest inflatable waterpark has called for an urgent overhaul of the insurance and legal professions after being hit with a €90,000 hike in insurance premiums over the past seven years.

“It’s like putting a bomb under the business,” said Richie O’Hara, owner of Baysports in Athlone, “and unless there is a complete rebalancing of the duty of care many people will simply be put out of business.”

In 2015, Baysports was paying an insurance premium of just under €8,000, and this year the business is paying €102,000.

“We are paying €10,200 in premiums every month despite the fact that we are closed for seven months of the year.”

While he fully accepts that visiting an adventure centre or waterpark carries “certain risks”, Richie O’Hara said there is “a complete imbalance in the duty of care” which places the onus “entirely on the operator” and unless this is rebalanced many businesses that provide leisure facilities will be forced to close.

“Our business is a high risk environment and always has been, but we make every effort humanly possible to minimise those risks and we have a very good track record,” he said, “but over the last 10 years there has been a noticeable increase in people bringing claims.”

Evidence of this can be gleaned from the fact that, since 2017, four claims have been taken against Baysports, with one being settled without the knowledge of the company for a substantial award. Two of the claims have been withdrawn since then.

“We have one claim outstanding and that has kept pushing up our insurance premium every year, where it is going to stop?”

Referring to the so-called ‘compo culture’ Richie O’Hara said it is “endemic in society” and the role played by the vested interests is something that “needs to be looked at.”

“We as a provider need to be accountable and rightly so, we have to operate in a safe manner and do our utmost to adhere to the highest safety standards, but there are opportunists out there and there are vested interests who see this as a way of making money,” he said.

While he is anxious to assert that he is not in the business of “finger pointing” the Baysports owner said vested interests have been allowed to “go too far for too long” in this country and have taken “full advantage” of the system. “It’s always the patsy in the middle that ends up paying,” he added.

From the time his business receives a solicitor’s letter, Richie O’Hara says it is “very difficult to stop the process as someone has to pay”.

Having been in business for over 40 years and dealing with countless hundreds of thousands of customers, Mr O’Hara said it is becoming “more difficult every day” for private operators to continue in business.

“This is not just a Baysports issue, it is an industry-wide issue,” he points out, “and I have raised the spiralling cost of insurance premiums both at local and national level and still nothing whatsoever is being done about it, it’s a disgrace what’s going on.”