| OCR Text |
Show Ski lift manufacturers to huddle with insurers over liability issues by JANICE PERRY Record editor Representatives from about 100 Western ski areas will meet in Park City next week for a National Ski Areas Association (NSSA) convention, conven-tion, during which insurance underwriters under-writers will meet with ski lift manufacturers to talk about liability problems. - Makers of ski lifts are facing cutbacks cut-backs or cancellations of insurance coverage following an accident that injured 49 people at the Keystone ski resort in Colorado. The accident occurred Dec. 14 when a two-ton pulley wheel broke free from its housing while the lift was operating at capacity. The cable went slack' whipping skiers from their chairs 30 feet to the ground. Lift Engineering and Manufacturing Manufactur-ing of Carson City, Nev., was not allowed to renew its liability policy alter it expired Dec. 20. NSSA President Presi-dent Cal Conniff said Lift Engineering, Engineer-ing, which makes Yan chairlifts, is among the eight manufacturers scheduled to meet Mondav at the Yarrow with representatives of Pettit-Morry Co., a Seattle insurance in-surance underwriter which is one of two major industry insurers. NSSA is the other. NSSA lists 17 ski lift manufacturers manufac-turers worldwide, but Conniff said a half-dozen do the majority of the business with U.S. resorts. "Representatives of Pettit-Morrey Pettit-Morrey will sit down with these people, peo-ple, individually or collectively, to see if they can work it out," Conniff said. He said it is difficult to tell whether the problems experienced by ski lift manufacturers in general can be attributed to the Keystone accident. ac-cident. "It's hard to say," he said. "Just prior to the accident, underwriters for ski areas and other businesses were taking a very hard look at their coverage, raising premiums, cutting back coverage and making it very difficult to gel coverage. "So, when Keystone comes along, underwriters naturally took a good hard look at it." he said, savins the m accident "compounded the problems pro-blems that were already there." Other activities planned for the two-day convention include a major heavy equipment trade show, in which slope-grooming machines and other equipment will be available for examination. "Ski -area people mountain managers will be taking and driving driv-ing them around and putting them through their paces" on the Clemen-v tine ski run near The Resort Center, Conniff said. Also, Roy Feuchter. director of . recreation management for the U.S. Forest Service, will speak to the group Tuesday afternoon on issues involving ski areas and the federal government. Coniff .noted that the Park City resorts are anomalies among Western ski areas, which primarily are on federal land. Those resorts operate on permits Conniff said have been in use since skiing involved a lew rope-tows. "It's very archaic," he said. "The industry has changed dramatically in the last 40 to 50 years and . . . and the length of leases is not long enough for ski areas to easily get financing for improvements." Also, he noted, for a number of ski areas in the Pacific Northwest, the federal government even owns the ski area base as well as the mountain moun-tain and the government has not allowed construction ol lodging on site. "That's why there are ao destination destina-tion ski resorts there," he said. Another speaker will be psychologist Ron Andrea, who Monday Mon-day morning will provide video program pro-gram training for ski area personnel on how to approach the reckless skier and bring them under control. The ski area operators also will be briefed on proposed revisions to the American National Standards Institute In-stitute ski lift engineering standards. stan-dards. Conniff said the revisions are totally unrelated to the Keystone accident. ac-cident. The standards are adhered to by lift manufacturers worldwide and generally are adopted with minor revisions by local governmental authorities. |
