Rapidly-escalating insurance costs are threatening Australia’s amusement parks, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Liability insurance premiums in the past 18 months have forced many small and family-owned businesses to cease trading or take on large debts to safeguard themselves against accidents and claims.
Insurers are seeking better returns in lower-risk markets, so travelling carnivals, go-kart centres, inflatable rides operators are struggling to renew their policies, says the newspaper. Some of the insurance premiums have more than doubled and it names Melbourne’s Luna Park now having to pay A$1m (€641,000) for public liability insurance of $20m (€12.8m), while two years ago it cost $135,000 (€86,000) for $100m (€64m).
Bruce Billson, Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, said: “As businesses look to reopen after lockdown, this issue is a shattering blow for those small and family businesses in the amusement, leisure and recreation sector that will be forced to stay shut because they cannot get insurance.”
He cites that school fetes face being unable to hire jumping castles, slides, obstacle courses, rock-climbing walls and dodgem cars, unless a solution is found.
Shane McGrath, president of the Australian Amusement Leisure and Recreation Association, said the industry was facing "catastrophic consequences" of a failing insurance market. “We will have more and more rides sitting vacant in storage sheds around the country; we will have more closures, is we don’t get a solution,” he said.
Mary Stuart, Melbourne Luna Park director, is quoted as saying the industry had been badly damaged by the lockdown, notably in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as the lack of international tourists since the borders were closed last March.
Luna Park, she said, had been forced to take on debt to meet its insurance costs, but rising premiums would force hundreds of businesses to close and thousands of people would be out of work.
