Although most will scoff, the most significant development in blogging over the past several months has been the interest of some liability insurance companies to develop affordable publisher liability insurance for bloggers.
This is something I have been working on for two years because I have known that it is crucial to the future development of blogging and citizne journalism.
Last month I was invited to speak at the Professional Liability Underwriters Society conference in Chicago. There I met with insurance company executives interested in developing a liability product for bloggers. Once there I learned that there primary reason for holding a session on blogging was not about advancing citizen journalism but covering their assets, so to speak. Industry lawyers explained to the assembled insurance executives that many homeowner policy holders were now blogging and that insurance companies now had new risk exposure (some homeowners policies include some liability coverage which might apply to blog-related litigation). Their recommendation was to rewrite policies to explicitly exclude losses related to blogging.
I also learned that these policies have two big holes in them from a blogger's perspective - they do not cover punitive damages and they are void if the blogger makes any money from their blog. As many of you know, most of the damages in cases like defamation or copyright are punitive damages so these policies do not cover the biggest costs. It was not clear whether any of these policies covered legal expenses defending against a lawsuit. And that last bit about making money means that if you are running blogads, Amazon Associates or Google Ad Sense on your site you may not be covered.
I am well aware the few bloggers believe they have any kind of risk exposure related to their blogs. A small handful know the risk but either feel themselves immune or perhaps covered by their homeowners policy. At the same, as you all know, I am perhaps one of the most visible people in the blogosphere on this issue and I can tell you that whatever you imagine to be the case, the reality is that I get a phone call or email just about every day (sometimes two) from some blogger who has gotten into trouble over their blog. This is a big problem and is going to get worse not better.
Put simply, free speech isn't free. Publishers (and you are all publishers) without the financial/legal resources to defend themselves are going to eventually find themselves unable to continue publishing. Whether you realize it or not you need to have liability insurance coverage. The future of blogging/citizen journalism depends on a workable liability insurance product.
Here's the good news!
It turns out that all of the things we have been working on at the MBA to create special opportunities for MBA members just so happen to make MBA members an especially desirable "risk pool" from the insurance company perspective. What we view as creating legal protections for bloggers (ethics and legal advisory services, member candidate vetting, a required legal survey course, etc.) are known as "loss prevention" in the insurance industry. By creating a large pool of preferred risks, the insurance companies are willing to offer MBA members a better product at a lower rate.
Just to be clear, the MBA would not sell insurance but rather would buy a policy that would cover MBA members. Membership dues would go, in part, to cover the cost of the insurance premiums but the insurance itself would be a benefit of membership not a separate line-item. In other words, "no, you will not be allowed to opt-out and pay some reduced amount as dues". More on this in the post on MBA Finances.
