Adventure Program RM Off To Rocky Start

The survey examined adventure program safety concerns, existing safety management systems within the programs, accident histories and program priorities for expanded safety initiatives and resources.

Stacy Moran, industrial and organizational psychologist with The St. Paul Companies and one of the surveys authors, said St. Paul, which offers coverage for outdoor adventure programs, was eager to collaborate on the study.

"While it would benefit the entire industry, obviously St. Paul has a vested interest," she said. "And I think all of us have individual family members or friends or associates who participate in these kinds of activities."

There is no consistent method of evaluating these programs, she said, adding that while there are some standards, there is little consistency among programs. As a result, consumers have "no consistent measuring stick," she said.

This also makes it difficult for insurers to use "anything but past experience with claims," which she said is "not a very efficient way to assess those exposures."

Ms. Moran said she was most surprised by a disconnection between what risk managers saw as safety concerns and what they were doing to correct them. "There seemed to be a misalignment between where their safety concerns are and where their emphasis of their programs are," she noted.

For example, she said, even though "driving and other transportation issues" was the number one concern by respondents, it ranked 18th out of 22 safety management practices.

"So less than half the programs that responded to our survey were using driver training and selection to minimize their risk," she concluded. "It seems were in an area where we have concerns about those things and our programs need to catch up to those concerns."

The other example, Ms. Moran said, was in respect to instructor training. "When individuals were asked what resource would benefit their risk management efforts, instructor judgment training was found to be number one," she explained. "But in terms of it being used as a professional development strategy, it ranked 10th out of 14 in the frequency of use."

She attributed this gap to the infancy of the industry and gave them credit for "identifying the concerns and being aware of them, because that is the number one step." The second step, she said, is for the outdoor industry to collaboratively address these issues.

"Obviously St. Paul has a large number of risk management tools that weve developed for other industries that have strong application here," she said, citing the construction industry, which St. Paul at one time found had "lacked the resources to make sound judgments." A training program was developed for foremen and work crews on "site awareness, effective communication and team building," she noted.

"If we can help them understand the error chain, give them permission to speak up about it and allow a culture that supports that, well better address that," she said, adding that she hopes St. Paul will see to some "transfer of learning," and address the outdoor adventure industry in the same fashion.

Lewis Glenn, vice president, safety and programs with Outward Bound USA, said risk management is playing an increasingly important role in outdoor adventure programs. Although Outward Bound has a good safety record and its insurance premiums have dropped over the years, Mr. Glenn said, he believes safety will "increasingly be a factor" in the outdoor adventure industry. "We cant take [low rates] for granted anymore," he said.

This is partly because of "the looks the industry is getting" from some recent "notorious events" that have made national headlines, such as two deaths in youth boot camps in the West, he said. "This is one of the reasons we got involved," he noted. "Whenever there is a fatality in the industry, it is often referred to by the media as an Outward Bound-like program."

Mr. Glenn said this is also why Outward Bound has been instrumental in creating the Wilderness Risk Managers Committee, which holds a yearly conference for risk managers of outdoor adventure programs. "This is a call for the industry to better understand the exposures and the risks," he added. Next years conference is scheduled for Oct. 26-28 in Banff, Canada, he noted.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, November 26, 2001. Copyright 2001 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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