Neighborhood Picnic & Bounce Houses

I am a Board Member w/in a HOA that has about 130 single family homes on small lots and a fair amount of HOA-owned open space. Our only real amenities are the open space, some walking trails, a couple pergolas, and a small playground.

My HOA has a budget line item for Social Activities and for the past 4 years we've hosted an annual Neighborhood Picnic that occurs on HOA-owned open space. It is almost entirely funded through this budget line item although attendees are asked to contribute a dessert to help encourage participation in the event and defray costs.

All that said, one of the largest draws for the kids is that we usually have 1-2 bounce houses set up. It's a professional company and we hire an attendant from the company to do some monitoring of the bounce houses. Board and Committee members try to do some monitoring of the bounce houses while they are in us, but we'd like to enjoy the event as well and not be watching other peoples' kids the whole time. Some parents attend to their children, but others let their kids go free with little to no supervision. Regardless of the monitoring, accidents can still happen and kids can get hurt. It's obvious that kids love these things, but it's also becoming more and more apparent that they can be pretty dangerous and increase risk and likelihood of an accident or injury.

We've confirmed that our general liability insurance ($1M limit) would cover us if necessary. But we also know that if we ever had to make a claim, we'd likely be dropped. Future insurance would be tough to find and premiums would increase significantly. Bottom line . . . the bounce houses are great and we've had success in the past, but I'm starting to wonder if it's even worth the risk to have them.

I'm looking for input from you all on what you think of how we currently handle the bounce houses, what you think we could do differently or better, and maybe what your own community has done.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks JonD1 . . . meant to speak to that point also.

Many of these companies now only insure against the possibility of equipment issues/malfunction causing injuries, and not in the event of an injury that occurs as a result of using the equipment.

The companies themselves have become wise to the fact that it's inherently dangerous and now most liability is placed on the renter versus the company that provides the equipment.

Examples:

If all tethers break and an inflatable slide tips over causing a rider to fall out and become injured, then that would be on the company's insurance.

If a rider slides down the same slide and breaks their arm because they slid down backwards, then that would be on the HOA's insurance.

How about not allowing any children into the house without a parent or guardian? I get you don't want to babysit, but if kids are allowed to attend without supervision, you are babysitting them already whether their in the bounce or not.

If a kid gets hurt and a parent is not there, the parent is at fault. Not the board, not the neighbors and not the bouncy house people.

In fact, I would suggest that the company has that written somewhere that they are not liable for unsupervised children and you should put that in big bold letters on the flyer etc.

Play at your own risk. Plus talk to the bouncy house people to see if they carry insurance. Talk to your own HOA insurance to make sure it's okay. I wanted to install a playground once. Turns out our insurance would not have changed. We already had a pool.

I will tell you this. Do NOT install the bouncy house if the company offers this. Let the bouncey people do their job and install/take down. If your HOA wants to rent one and install it, then that's where the HOA's responsibility really comes in. Otherwise it's on the bouncy house provider.

A few years ago we had an air show in town. The organizers (IMO) did a crappy job. I saw danger and even commented there was going to be an accident. The next day sure enough it happened. A freak storm came up and tore down the VIP tents on the Tarmac. A young boy was killed and several injured. The Airport board who put it together couldn't be sued because they were incorporated. The lawsuits had to go against the individual vendors. Which it turns out really were not that responsible. (IMO). They rented the Airport Corporation the tents but the Corporation insist in installing them themselves. The Vendor told them not a good idea. However, they installed them improperly and they blew up in the wind.

So I say keep going with the bouncy houses. However, make sure to put the responsibility on the bouncy house providers. If they don't carry insurance go with someoene else. Never rent them and install them. All that is on you.

Well said. The subject is getting out of hand. Adults screwing up a kid's good time.

Go with something with less risk. A suggestion is to hire a clown who can do balloon critters and simple magic tricks. There are dozens of other ideas as well.

Agreed😊