Hold Harmless?

Do you use hold harmless agreements? We are loaning bicycles and sometimes kayaks. I pulled a Hold Harmless from the web and personalized it.
Do you require a guest to sign a liability waiver to use your stuff?
OR - do you ever lend bicycles or kayaks?

DH asked a guest from Germany to sign yesterday. He said, "Oh yes. America. Liability."

They aren't worth the paper they are printed on, but if it makes you feel better or makes them feel better.

Joey Bloggs said:

They aren't worth the paper they are printed on, but if it makes you feel better or makes them feel better. .

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Joey Bloggs said:

They aren't worth the paper they are printed on, but if it makes you feel better or makes them feel better.

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Why not?

Not worth the paper because you can still be sued, and if indeed negligent still found liable, but they do make our insurance company feel better. We have a liability release, hold harmless, and indemnification clause incorporated into our terms and conditions / rental agreement, on which we get a signature from the lead guest for every party. See the rental terms on our website.

Harborfields said:

Not worth the paper because you can still be sued, and if indeed negligent still found liable, but they do make our insurance company feel better. We have a liability release, hold harmless, and indemnification clause incorporated into our terms and conditions / rental agreement, on which we get a signature from the lead guest for every party. See the rental terms on our website..

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Harborfields said:

Not worth the paper because you can still be sued, and if indeed negligent still found liable, but they do make our insurance company feel better. We have a liability release, hold harmless, and indemnification clause incorporated into our terms and conditions / rental agreement, on which we get a signature from the lead guest for every party. See the rental terms on our website.

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Anyone can sue for anything. Can't escape that. I just want it so they can't win the suit because there was a pothole we didn't tell them about.

I do - for the bicycles I loan out.

No matter what they sign, no matter what they agree to, they can still sue AND WIN if they are injured due to your negligence. And if they win, and the judgement is higher than your insurance covers, you are in trouble.
What they sign really means nothing. If they have a good lawyer who convinces a jury a prudent person would have warned them about potholes, you could still lose.
Of course this is all very unlikely, but it COULD happen. No getting around that.

We don't loan anything like that but we could if we wanted to. Our insurance allows us to do 'typical b&b activities'.
You can get a signature but it won't mean anything if they decided to sue. Unless, of course, you are a major corporation with fine print no one reads.

My understanding (and I admit, I've never researched this) is that if you "loan" something to a guest, you can't be held liable. That doesn't mean they can't try to sue, but it won't hold up. Only when you charge for additionals, are you possibly liable. Maybe this is only in Texas - we think we're kinda special here

We allow guests to use our rowboat without having them sign anything. Our insurance agent knows this and it's never been a problem. We do, however, insist they take lifejackets with them. We can't make them wear them though.

Years ago I approached my insurance company about lending guests bicycles. They in no uncertain terms said don't do it. We would have had to have them sign a waiver and were told that the waiver would be useless. We would also have to provide helmets, knee and elbow pads and give them a 15 minute lesson on safety. We also wanted to offer kayaks, but I thought the insurance rep was going to choke to death when I mentioned it.
We figured it's just not worth the extra risk. Why would we want to open ourselves up to a lawsuit? Even if we won, we would have to pay a lot of money in legal bills just to defend ourselves.
Heck, our insurance rates went up just with doing elopements!

No! It's just one more thing to maintain, worry about and store. I always tell guests where they can rent bikes or kayaks....it's soooo much easier than having to deal with the hassles.

Silverspoon said:

No! It's just one more thing to maintain, worry about and store. I always tell guests where they can rent bikes or kayaks....it's soooo much easier than having to deal with the hassles..

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Silverspoon said:

No! It's just one more thing to maintain, worry about and store. I always tell guests where they can rent bikes or kayaks....it's soooo much easier than having to deal with the hassles.

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We have a guy in town who I apparently convinced to rent bikes. He outfitted himself with a bunch of them, helmets included, and he'll bring them right to the house.
I had no idea I was so persuasive!

MANY years ago, a friend who owned a bicycle shop (sold mine to me) told me to NOT rent bikes because the insurance "will eat you alive". She said loan them.
My previous insurance company wanted the waivers so I did them - for a while. All it did was give me more useless paper. Waivers are not worth the paper they are printed on. I have it on my web site that we do not rent bikes. There are 2 bicycles in the shed for guests to use and we do not charge for the use but suggest (ONLY suggest) a donation to the Lord's Pantry Food Bank for their use. I also provide helmets - cannot force them to wear them.
Often I could almost see the guest's brains saying sure, this $20 is going to go to the Pantry. Wish I could be there when they get the thank you tax receipt from the Pantry for their donation. The cash is always paper clipped to an index card with name & address of the donor and the Director sends a thank you with receipt for taxes for each donation.

Madeleine said:

Silverspoon said:

No! It's just one more thing to maintain, worry about and store. I always tell guests where they can rent bikes or kayaks....it's soooo much easier than having to deal with the hassles..

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Silverspoon said:

No! It's just one more thing to maintain, worry about and store. I always tell guests where they can rent bikes or kayaks....it's soooo much easier than having to deal with the hassles.

Click to expand...

We have a guy in town who I apparently convinced to rent bikes. He outfitted himself with a bunch of them, helmets included, and he'll bring them right to the house.
I had no idea I was so persuasive!
.

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Maybe this is the start of a new career for you! Call yourself a "start-up" consultant!!!