City council adopts new event insurance requirements

The City of Gunnison City Council approved a resolution establishing new insurance requirements for events on public property or in the public right-of-way at its July 28 meeting.

City Clerk Erica Boucher explained the proposed requirements to the council, saying that the changes would implement tiered insurance requirements for events and that the new requirements would help clarity and consistency around events in the city and to help mitigate risk management in the city.

She said that the proposal was a continuation of discussions that occurred when the city adopted an ordinance revamping the event permitting process in 2024 where the council indicated that it would want to consider insurance requirements for events at a later date.

Boucher highlighted the positive impact of community events in Gunnison, adding, “In no way do we want this to be a deterrent or a barrier for organizations and individuals to continue to have their events, but just as a way to make sure that we have some guidelines and some requirements for people to make sure that those events are done in a safe way as well.”

She said that staff used insurance requirements from other nearby communities and ideas from the Colorado Intergovernmental Risk Sharing Agency, which assists Gunnison with risk management, to draft the proposed policy.

The tiered system works well in a variety of communities, said Boucher, and helps accommodate a variety of event types, from large events hosted by the City to family reunions and birthday parties.

She said that staff narrowed down the tier system to ten risk factors, including attendance, crowd management, alcohol use, fire and electricity risks, structures involved, pedestrian and vehicle interactions, food safety, security, and animals involved, and created three levels of risk for each factor.

The event organizer would provide proposed risk tiers for each category when submitting their permit application but the final decision would be made by city staff about the overall risk level for the event and accompanying insurance requirements, Boucher said.

The proposed system would use a scoring system to evaluate risk, with no risk in one factor scoring zero points, low risk scoring one, medium risk scoring two and high risk scoring three.

The total risk score would add up to determine total risk, with events scoring from one to 10 points being assigned risk level one, events scoring 11 to 20 points assigned to risk level two and events scoring 21 to 30 points assigned risk level three.

Level one events would require no liability insurance, level two events would require commercial general liability insurance with a limit of at least $1 million per occurrence and automobile liability insurance with a limit of at least $500,000 per incident, and level three events would require commercial general liability insurance with a limit of at least $2 million per occurrence and automobile liability insurance with a limit of at least $500,000 per occurrence.

Boucher said that the goal was to ensure that small events like family reunions would likely not require insurance, although she commented that insurance in general is “quite cost effective” even for private individuals.

She said that the insurance provided by most traditional community events would largely align with the new requirements.

Mayor Pro Tem Marisela Ballesteros asked Boucher if these new regulations would include block parties, since they occur on the streets, which she confirmed.

“I will say that’s one of the things that came to mind for me was things like block parties and possibly needing to have insurance in order to have a block party,” said Councilor Matt Schwartz. “I’m not sure that’s really productive for building community. I don’t know what our options are though.”

He added that a $150 or $200 insurance bill would likely discourage neighborhood block parties.

City Manager Amanda Wilson said that such a party would not necessarily be placed at the second or third risk levels and require insurance, although alcohol is a key potential risk factor and that its presence could raise the risk level.

She added that events exceeding risk level one in one category would not necessarily mean that it would be scored at a higher risk level overall and that the council could adjust the point numbers for the risk levels if desired.

“I want to just point out that it’s impossible to get less than 10 because it’s a 10 point scoring system,” Ballesteros said, “so like, even if you have one thing that is a medium risk, that bumps you up to a medium risk.”

Wilson highlighted that having no risk is a zero, lowering the range of potential scores.

Councilor Loren Ahonen said that many entities that hold events in the community already have insurance that meets requirements and asked if someone holding a block party or similar event could partner with someone who already has insurance or whether they would need their own insurance.

“The answer is yes, it’s the applicants that we review,” Wilson said. “So, if Bob’s cooking has insurance and you invite Bob’s cooking and they are the applicant of the event, then yes.”

“I just think about like, for the Hispanic culture, a lot of the time, all of our events would be medium,” Ballesteros said. She added that various events, like processions through the Catholic Church are more than 250 people “because we love to gather. We always have food. I think about just your birthday party, that’s a quinceanera, no longer being able to happen because they have to pay insurance for a birthday party.”

She said that the added costs might be a “turn off” for many people and that city grants to promote gathering might now be partially spent on obtaining insurance.

Mayor Diego Plata asked where the insurance coverage amounts in the proposed policy came from, which staff said reflected insurance standards in Colorado.

He also noted that weight requirements for animals, which placed events involving animals over 25 pounds in risk level two, might be excessively low for dogs.

Boucher said that if the event organizer wanted to avoid the requirement to have insurance, they could exclude dogs from the event.

Wilson added that staff focused on pounds due to the difficulty of defining types of animals that could be included or excluded at various risk levels.

She said that many events, such as farmer’s markets, do exclude dogs for insurance reasons and that this decision would be on the event organizer, with the city establishing minimum standards.

Wilson also said that the city council could ask staff to revise the matrix or to exempt specific events, like community block parties, from the insurance rules.

“I just want us to be aware that the recommendation before you is based upon our insurance provider and in fact, in some areas, is far less than what they had recommended,” Wilson said.

She added that the system allows for events, like a balloon rally, that an insurance provider would recommend completely prohibiting due to insurance concerns, and does conform with other Colorado municipalities.

“We would just ask for some pretty specific directions if you’re going to ask that we bring this back to you, please,” Wilson said.

Plata said that the limits on insurance had always been a “weird gray box” for him.

“My biggest concern on this is the onus it puts on that family gathering that may just stop somebody from saying, ‘Eh, I don’t want to get insurance, let’s not do it,’” he said.

Plata also asked when the applicant would have the ability to provide input or clarifications on the content of their event, which might help them drop their risk level.

Boucher said that this would be part of the application process and is part of why applications must be submitted 30 days before the event is to take place.

Plata asked if this could be outlined in the process itself to help applicants understand that conversations could occur about the details of an event and its risk level.

Boucher said that this could be outlined on the City Clerk’s website along with other application information.

Wilson added that the resolution the council was considering outlines the requirements and the procedures could be detailed separately.

She said that this “back and forth” is already occurring as part of applications and that the regulations would provide consistency and ensure applicants are treated equally.

Wilson added that applicants could also hold events on private property, including the Gunnison County Fairgrounds.

“If you don’t like the city’s insurance requirements, then maybe you can have the quinceanera at the county fairgrounds,” she said.

Boucher said that the city could potentially reorient the animal risk categories around volume of animals and not size, which might fit the goals of the regulations while making it clearer.

Wilson said that it might be difficult to quantify how many animals would be at an event and that the purpose of the event was to quantify risk from animals like horses at the Cattlemen’s Day parade.

“We’re not challenging the number of horses to determine the risk,” she said. “The roof is the horse because the horse is big and it’s in a populated pedestrian area. We had that incident happen last year, as many of you might recall. Animals inherently are unpredictable when they’re in an environment like that. So this isn’t just about the farmer’s market and dogs or your block party and you’re bringing your dog along with you, we’re really trying to get more at the scale and the complexity of that event with a larger scaled animal. I think that’s where the balance and poundage was trying to fall.”

She added that the rule could potentially use more clarification but she was speaking on the overall goal of the rule.

“I see it working for big events,” Ballesteros said, “but for your normal, just everyday, like, cultural party, we’re basically telling them to get insurance.”

Wilson said that insurance would only be required if multiple higher tier risks were found and that block parties or community birthday parties would not necessarily require insurance.

“So, respectfully, it’s more about what are you doing at that party?” she said. “What are the activities? … The intent absolutely was not to negatively impact. We certainly can change it, I’m not at all pushing back in that regard, if you feel that we’re not there, then we certainly can do something such as exempting a block party that is under X size or something cleaner like that if that would make everyone feel better.”

“I’m okay with the system as presented,” Ahonen said. “You can attempt to pigeonhole any sort of hypothetical event into this. That’s the nature of having a matrix. We could go round and round for hours about theoretical constructions of family gatherings.”

“I actually agree with Loren as I think about it,” said Schwartz. “I do agree that it is important that we mitigate risk. It’s something that we all have to do in our lives and our business regularly and I think it’s important that we put a process in place to do that. I have a feeling that we can move forward with this and possibly want to revisit it after some time. I think it’d be really interesting to see, say, in a year or so, if we did move forward, what kind of statistics we saw or what the general number of applicants who said ‘I’d like to do this’ and found out, ‘Oh no, I have to get insurance’ and cancelled their events and maybe that would be worth revisiting as well. But, I think that this is a good system and I think that we’ll need to tweak it over time as we learn by implementation.”

Councilor Audrey Zahradka said that most service animals weigh more than 25 pounds and that it might be worth putting language in the rules to make an exception for service animals to prevent Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance issues.

“Just, kind of to bring back the block party, I do live by an assisted living place and a lot of those folks have service animals and if we’re going to accept them, potentially, that’s not really fair,” she said.

Boucher said that service animals are typically excluded from laws and regulations that bar the presence of animals and that she felt comfortable not counting them in the application.

In response to a question from Plata, Boucher said that insurance policies for events just outside the low risk category could be $75 to $100, while moderate risk events could cost between $300 and $500 and high risk events could cost $2,000 or $5,000 depending on size.

She added that most large events that serve alcohol involve an already licensed bar or liquor store that has insurance, meaning that the requirement carries no additional cost.

Plata also asked how this policy would apply to recurring events like Sundays at 6 and whether they would have to purchase insurance for each event.

Boucher said that policies typically go for a year.

Plata also asked how licensed food trucks would fit into the food security risk calculations.

Food trucks would likely count as onsite cooking, which aligns with a level three risk, due to the trucks often having propane and flames, Boucher said. However, she added, the truck would have insurance which would cover the insurance requirement for the event.

Plata also asked if food safety would consider foodborne illness and preparation dangers like fire or only one.

Boucher confirmed that it would consider both issues.

The council then voted unanimously to adopt Resolution No. 8, Series 2026 establishing the event insurance requirements for events on public property or in the public right-of-way.