• Abandoned Oklahoma amusement park on new episode of American Picker

    From Alan Conceicao@21:1/5 to All on Mon Apr 12 05:50:26 2021
    "high cost of insurance"...

    I heard that BS excuse locally, back in the eighties when my neighbourhood fire dept. said due to "increasing insurance premiums" 1984 would be the last year of the carnival to raise funds for the volunteer fire dept.

    I later learned that local "business" owners were skimming increasing amounts of the event's take(earnings from games of chance, rides tickets, etc). Plus, police were charging higher and higher rates to provide crowd and traffic control around the
    carnival site.

    The liability insurance crisis actually happened and was the single most devastating event in the last 50 years to the amusement industry:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liability_insurance_crisis

    No one in enthusiast circles talks about it because no one ever connected the dots before best I can tell. I assume that it was noteworthy enough to be in ACE's publications in the 80s but who the hell knows.

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  • From TheK-ManRocks@21:1/5 to Alan Conceicao on Tue Apr 20 05:27:15 2021
    On Monday, April 12, 2021 at 8:50:27 AM UTC-4, Alan Conceicao wrote:
    "high cost of insurance"...

    I heard that BS excuse locally, back in the eighties when my neighbourhood fire dept. said due to "increasing insurance premiums" 1984 would be the last year of the carnival to raise funds for the volunteer fire dept.

    I later learned that local "business" owners were skimming increasing amounts of the event's take(earnings from games of chance, rides tickets, etc). Plus, police were charging higher and higher rates to provide crowd and traffic control around the
    carnival site.
    The liability insurance crisis actually happened and was the single most devastating event in the last 50 years to the amusement industry:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liability_insurance_crisis

    No one in enthusiast circles talks about it because no one ever connected the
    dots before best I can tell. I assume that it was noteworthy enough to be in ACE's publications in the 80s but who the hell knows.
    ____________

    So either through greed, or a combination of possibliities as outlined in the Wiki,
    insurance companies made it more difficult for "outdoor recreation" providers
    (amusement parks, temporary carnivals, etc,) to insure themselves in the event of
    harm to patrons or staff through ride malfunctions, fires, and unforeseen incidents.

    I guess larger chain parks, such as Six Flags, Cedar Fair, could simply absorb the
    higher costs of insuring themselves via annual ticket price increases, and other sources of revenue(add-on attraction fees not included at the admission gate, skyrocketing parking fees, etc).

    In the case of local church and fire bazaars, such as where I live, skimming of the daily take by providers of crowd and traffic control, as alleged or actually occurring, didn't help the bottom line

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  • From Dave Althoff, Jr.@21:1/5 to TheK-ManRocks on Sat Apr 24 16:55:53 2021
    TheK-ManRocks <thekmanrocks@gmail.com> wrote:
    : On Monday, April 12, 2021 at 8:50:27 AM UTC-4, Alan Conceicao wrote:
    : > > "high cost of insurance"...
    : >
    : > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liability_insurance_crisis
    : >
    : > No one in enthusiast circles talks about it because no one ever connected the
    : dots before best I can tell. I assume that it was noteworthy enough to be in : ACE's publications in the 80s but who the hell knows.
    : ____________
    :
    : So either through greed, or a combination of possibliities as outlined in
    : the Wiki, insurance companies made it more difficult for "outdoor
    : recreation" providers (amusement parks, temporary carnivals, etc,) to
    : insure themselves in the event of harm to patrons or staff through ride
    : malfunctions, fires, and unforeseen incidents.

    It was a combination of factors. There was an explosion of litigation at
    the time and a general increase in settlements for ever increasing amounts. There was also financial pressure all over...in hindsight it's not
    surprising that this happened as we were emerging from those dark days of "stagflation" and the extraordinarily high interest rates that finally
    brought inflation under control. Financially there was a period of moderate deflation and a sudden crash in interest rateswhich left investment organizations (like insurance companies) scrambling for ways to increase capital. We lost a number of insurance companies during this period as
    well, as smaller companies could no longer be profitable and smaller independent agents were being squeezed very hard. Companies were being hit
    from both sides: much higher losses, and much lower returns on investments, meaning the money to both operate and to pay claims had to come from
    somewhere. Or the companies simply exited that line of business entirely.

    : I guess larger chain parks, such as Six Flags, Cedar Fair, could simply
    : absorb the higher costs of insuring themselves via annual ticket price
    : increases, and other sources of revenue(add-on attraction fees not
    : included at the admission gate, skyrocketing parking fees, etc).

    Businesses that were large enough in some cases turned to self-insurance
    for a time. Companies that did also started going overboard with trying to eliminate risks in their parks. Not just amusement parks and carnivals, but even municipalities. This is when the swing-sets and sliding boards
    disappeared from the city parks, sledding hills were barricaded, pools and ponds were shut down, fireworks shows were canceled...a lot of things that disappeared back then have simply never come back. When was the last time
    you saw a Swingin' Gym in an amusement park?

    Eventually a few things started to happen. Insurers started to fight back
    in court instead of settling large claims. Sometimes even the appearance of
    a willingness to fight a claim was enough to reduce the settlement.
    Interest rates stabilized so that investment strategies could adapt.
    Reforms in insurance practices and in legal limitations helped as well. And
    for the amusement industry, specialty insurance brokers were able to fill
    in the gap and aggregate clients so that they could provide insurance
    services. At the same time the industry shifted from being more risk averse
    to getting much better at risk management. Amusement safety was now being
    seen as a discipline separate from, though tightly bound with inspection, maintenance and operations.

    --Dave Althoff, Jr.
    /X\ _ *** Respect rides. They do not respect you. ***
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