Urgent news for clubs – we got the money back….

Following on from the Crown Court`s verdict concerning Neil Jones on Friday 25th May, thus bringing to a positive conclusion 12 months of effort, the WPF Exec is thrilled to announce that we have some unexpected and wonderful news.

Roy Thomas and Jan Cawley asked Gordon Jenkins, the PAGB member who deals with insurance to take up our case with the PAGB Brokers, Darwin Clayton (UK) Ltd, and asked them to review any benefits under the recently introduced ‘Trustee Liability Insurance Policy’. 

At first we didn`t expect much, if anything to come of it, but thanks to the diligence and efforts of the then MD, Michael Wetherall & Robert Barden our Broker, a reference to “Fidelity” was found and they agreed to pursue the matter with Royal & Sun Alliance.

After some negotiation they came to the conclusion that this would cover our situation and thanks to Royal & Sun Alliance’s honourable treatment of our claim we have received the sum of £13,496.64 which is our loss of £ 16,870.80 less the Policy Excess of 20%.

The WPF think that this is a tremendously genuine response by both our Broker’s and the Insurance Company, which certainly shows the value of the PAGB Insurance scheme. It patently doesn’t fully cover our losses, but I feel this is more than fair on their part and puts us back on a sound financial footing, for which we are all extremely grateful and relieved.

Needless to say, following our claim, Royal & Sun Alliance have modified the details of the Trustee Liability Policy in regard to theft, and in future this will only be available to the 15 Federations – not to the 1,000 Camera Clubs, as this extends the risk considerably – they will also not in future pay out if there is any proof of pre-signing blank cheques, i.e. signing by one signatory of a cheque without a valid payee or monetary value already filled in.  In addition it should obviously be realised that any money obtained from the Principality, Lloyds/TSB,  or indeed the £20 per week from Neil Jones, now belongs to the Royal & Sun Alliance – I believe that it will be their task to chase Neil for the money but we will check that formally.

 The Exec will now be delighted to pay back as soon as it possibly can, the full levy and any loans our clubs paid to help us out, and also to send to them the annual discount of £25 that we would have paid to them if this unfortunate situation had not occurred.

We have all been very lucky to receive this payment and let us hope that a line can now be drawn under the horrendous incident and the WPF can move forward with a positive attitude for our future.