It is a properly established pukka Association, so they have no excuse… interestingly the only insurance they have for volunteers is to cover damage/injuries to third parties BY volunteers, and nothing for damage/ injuries caused TO volunteers. I wished they’d followed the advice you’ve been given about alerting volunteers in scenarios where there is no coverage.
We will have to find about 3000€ ourselves for the shortfall not covered by our own insurer.
Gosh… and there will doubtless be more bills to come… you’re not going to get back to 100% without more health care and kiné etc…
You’d think (and hope) any legal requirement and/or common sense decision to carry insurance would be driven by an assessment of the types of risks the volunteers were facing in their activities, regardless of geographic location?!
What an awkward situation! If you were French you would probably claim against the association anyway, via a mediator/tribunal if need be and not be apologetic about it. But my British raised soul would struggle with that - asking for a significant sum from an assoc with tuppence in the bank. Good luck!
I did my time on the Comite des Fetes also and of all the things discussed there was never a hint of anything to do with insurance, for us or anyone else. Never thought about it at the time.
DH is just finishing a long stint of chemotherapy and resulting heart problems, so not always an emergency, but things that have been difficult include sorting out the ALD paperwork, sorting the taxis and above all working out who is responsible for what. The medical care has been brilliant and the staff kind and caring, but we could have done with a key contact and some information of who does what. Several times we have not known whether to contact the consultant, the hospital clinic, the MT or the district nurses.
We have the emergency bag with chargers ready at all times.
Once the ALD was in place the paperwork has been pretty seamless though every department of our CHU seems to do everything differently. Emails don’t seem to be a thing so contact involves hanging on for someone to answer the phone.
The French email system 
The President and Treasurer would certainly know… as the President would be responsible for ensuring the correct details were declared to the Insurance company and the Treasurer would be writing the cheque… 
I can understand that the rest of the committee might not be aware of the details of the Insurance, but the amount paid to the Ins Co would have been entered into the Annual Accounts for all to see…
I was President for 3 years and each year I/we checked to see we were not in breach of the various sections… and we added some things to the schedule.
I was at an AGM last night… not CdFetes but another Association… and the Insurance cost clearly appears in the Outgoings… mind you, none of us discussed Insurance… it’s just one of those things one has to have and we assume the President/Treasurer does his/her job.
No least, it’s important to bear in mind not everything is covered by an ALD, only the condition itself (heart / cancer / etc). Mind you, our experience has also been that sometimes the person we are dealing with doesn’t know what the ALD covers and asks us - eg the woman at the scanner reception when we’re booking his next scan. And yes, the scan is!
I already have my ALD in place, so that should be helpful, but David Spardo can tell a different story.
I am hopeful that it should only be for two or three days.
I hope all goes well for you.
I was quite surprised when the MT visit was free under the ALD.
We have one of the highest levels of cover on our top-up insurance so that has always covered anything else.
It has been ok as he has gone through the six months of treatment, but when we were dealing with the diagnosis and the bureaucracy, a key contact would have been very helpful.
I am very grateful to those on here who helped at the time.
I certainly can, but with the very kind help of one lady in the pharmacy and one of Fran’s aides, we finally got the attestation from Ameli which made it clear that she wasn’t due to pay the €600 bill we got from the hospital.
The post arrived yesterday with yet another demand for €600. 
Karine at the pharmacy has copied it and will phone her contact again on Monday.
I see that @EmilyA didn’t mention the Assistante Sociale that everyone tells us will sort such things out, but I was totally blanked when I turned up for a booked appointment on time. I’m sure it is just that one though, isn’t it? 
A return to good health for all here who are under the medics.
My only experience of ‘an emergency’ resulted in fury at ‘Urgences’ - St. Lo.
The M.T. I signed up with because his D/Lib details included ‘Eng spoken’. Despite this he ordered me to speak FR. He took my b/p and told me I must go IMMEDIATELY to St Lo
“What? Now?” “Yes! It’s an emergency!”
I’d only been in FR a few weeks. I made my way [45 mins] nervously to ‘Urgences’ St Lo, presented my ord. Fortunately, amazingly, at that moment ‘Urgences’ had only one ‘patient’ - me. Considerable scepticism all round before they even took my b.p.
When they had, fury had no bounds for ‘Urgences’ wasting their time with a stuttering Englishman with b.p. just a bit above normal - white coat syndrome the likely cause.
“We must speak to this doctor!” But he’d done a bunk. Didn’t answer the surgery phone or his moble.
Then I was told to stand aside as an ambulance delivered a stretcher case.
“This is a real emergency! Possibly a stroke.”
I found a new M.T. chop-chop.
I’ve just had a skin cancer carcinoma removed. The surgeon tells me all’s clear. 
July/Aug were a nightmare of weeks of fruitess telephoning trying to get an RdV with a dermatologue. No RdVs with ‘independent’ dermatologues until well into 2024.
I pitched up at a clinic in Villedieu for the receptionist to tell me that not only was the derma on hols but look ! - the date you have booked [on D/Lib] is today - 2024!
In the end, with the kind encouragement of @AngelaR I went to St Lo and showed a couple of photos to the receptionist. She sent me straight tothe derma dept and I was into the system.
Meanwhile I applied for C.S.S. This was approved in exactly two weeks just before the original date of the operation. This was cancelled. The anaesthetist would not proceed because I have nobody at home and know nobody who would overnight with me after the op.
The obvious solution - overnight in hospital - must have been agreed almost at once. They just forgot to book another date for the op! The surgeon apologised ‘for the delay’.
My M.T. has just posted me as A.L.D. “100%! 100%!” enthused one of the two nurses who come to my home daily, inc w/e, to change my dressing.
Good job because Ambulances Viroises had to book a relief taxi back from Caen. It had a meter which read €135 when we got to Vire !
There has been an extraordinary development in this case. The President of the association has just said that in his opinion, subject to appropriate approval, the association should compensate me, even if their insurance is not going to cover the shortfall…that is very surprising, very generous and totally unexpected…
This is a small association with limited resources and I would absolutely not want them to absorb the entire shortfall…I too am responsible for the decision to have worked on the day I fell down a slope - nobody forced me to do so. I think I will suggest that it is extremely kind of them, but this is a shared responsibility so if they’d feel like contributing (say) 1000€ towards our shortfall …that would be more than generous.
Well done.
I hope your follow up goes well.
I imagine my taxi to and from here to Lyon will be expensive too.
Great, another win for human beings being decent. A split would also mean you could carry on volunteering without feeling bad about it.
I asked a French friend to arrange physio after l’d had a fall and hurt my shoulder [turned out it was a fracture]. She refused, unless the doctor agreed. MT came and dispatched me to the local hospital Urgences. Within two minutes of arrival l had pain killers and a sling. Within thirty minutes, l’d had Xrays, received the result, been put in a “carapace” and had my follow up rdv. Minimal bill.
On another occasion, blues and twos to hospital, and on a ward in under an hour.
Had a lung Xray and they noticed my thyroid was enlarged - removed pronto [l live in a high-radon area].
l shudder to think how the NHS would have coped.
Impossible to find another MT here in Cluny or surroundings.
I mentioned to one of the two angelic nurses who come daily [inc w/e] to change my dressing, “It would be more convenient if I got an M.T. here in Vire rather than having to drive 35 kms to Torigni”
“Nooooooo! Stay with Torigni! There are no M.T.s taking new patients in Vire!”
It was sheer luck I found my new M.T.
Dr Emergency [see above] told me to get a blood sample. I asked at the pharmacy in Torigni, only 10 mins from my then digs, and they directed me to a building with a panel of plates of medical practitioners of all sorts, inc two nurses. It also had a plate for a doctor. I enquired and I was accepted.
D/Lib had nothing about this Dr nor any of the other medics.
My Danish housemate came to me with a bit of a teenage housing emergency. His Finnish pal had a daughter doing an ‘A’ level term at a school in Brsl, along with another girl.
They were in a house way away on the outer fringes of the Bristol conurbation and knew they were missing a lot of action in Brsl city centre. They saw an ad on line, contacted ‘the owner’, sent him £500 by W.Union, turned up at an address … £500 gone. The fathers were well miffed.
I agreed they could take my spare b/room. They were v. well behaved but come the day they moved out I found an off-white patch the size of a 50p coin right, smack dab in the middle of the green carpet. Hair doings, I s’pose.
There were 3 options. Change the whole carpet, cut a patch from somewhere under a piece of furniture or get a Pantone felt tip and colour it in. I took some carpet fluff to an art shop and got a felt tip. It worked.