Voluntary Workers Insurance: Why Your Charity or Club Needs More Than Just Public Liability
Understanding the coverage gap that leaves Australia’s 9.5 million volunteers financially exposed
Australians volunteer in extraordinary numbers. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ General Social Survey, 9.5 million people volunteered in Australia in 2025, representing 42.8% of the population aged over 15, contributing a combined 618 million hours, up from 490 million hours previously recorded. Behind almost every sporting club, charity, church group, and community event in this country, there’s a volunteer making it happen.
What most committee members, club presidents, and charity boards don’t fully appreciate is that the moment one of those volunteers is injured, public liability insurance, the policy most organisations assume protects them, often does nothing for the volunteer at all.
Public Liability Protects Your Organisation. It Doesn’t Protect Your Volunteers.
Public liability insurance exists to protect your organisation when a third party, a member of the public, a visitor, a spectator, suffers injury or property damage because of your organisation’s negligence. It’s essential cover, and most clubs and charities rightly have it in place.
But here’s the gap that catches so many volunteer-run organisations off guard: public liability generally responds when your organisation is at fault and someone else is harmed. It typically does very little for a volunteer who is injured while doing the very work your organisation asked them to do, regardless of whether anyone was at fault.
This isn’t a technicality. It’s a structural feature of how Australian workplace injury law treats volunteers.
Why WorkCover Won’t Save You
Every business owner understands, at least broadly, that employees are protected by workers’ compensation if they’re injured on the job. What far fewer committee members and charity administrators understand is that volunteers generally aren’t.
Across Australian states, volunteers are typically not classified as “workers” for the purposes of workers’ compensation legislation, and are not entitled to compensation unless a specific Act of Parliament says otherwise. In practical terms, this means a volunteer injured while marshalling a fun run, serving at a club barbecue, coaching junior sport, or helping out at a charity event usually has no WorkCover safety net at all, no matter how the injury occurred.
For an organisation built and run largely by unpaid volunteers, this creates an uncomfortable reality: the people doing the most to keep your club or charity running are frequently the least protected if something goes wrong.
The Gap Is Playing Out Right Now
This isn’t a theoretical risk. In October 2025, East Gippsland Shire Council in Victoria stopped covering the insurance costs for 43 community groups that manage assets on Crown land, including sporting clubs and public facilities. Those volunteer-run groups were suddenly told they would need to find thousands of dollars themselves to maintain cover, or continue operating without it.
The situation illustrates something important about volunteer organisations generally: they tend to operate on tight budgets, thin reserves, and a assumption that “insurance is sorted.” When an insurance gap opens up, whether through a council policy change, a lapsed renewal, or simply never having considered volunteer-specific cover in the first place, the organisation often discovers the exposure only after it’s too late to do anything but scramble.
What Voluntary Workers Insurance Actually Covers
Voluntary workers insurance is specifically designed to close this gap. Rather than responding to third-party claims like public liability does, it provides benefits directly to your volunteers if they’re injured, regardless of fault, while performing unpaid work on behalf of your organisation.
Typical cover includes a weekly injury benefit to help replace lost income while a volunteer recovers, accidental death and disablement benefits, non-Medicare medical expenses that aren’t otherwise reimbursed, funeral expenses, and in more comprehensive policies, emergency home assistance such as cleaning, meal preparation, or temporary home modifications for volunteers seriously injured and unable to manage everyday tasks.
Cover generally extends to anyone performing unpaid work with your organisation’s knowledge and consent, not just volunteers, but often board members, committee members, and casual event helpers too, provided they aren’t receiving anything beyond reimbursement of reasonable expenses. Most policies cover volunteers roughly between the ages of 12 and 85, which matters enormously for clubs relying on junior helpers or retirees, two groups heavily represented in Australian volunteering.
Public Liability and Voluntary Workers Insurance Work Together, Not Instead of Each Other
The two policies aren’t competing products, they’re complementary, and a genuinely well-protected club or charity needs both. Public liability protects your organisation against claims from third parties who are injured or suffer property damage because of your activities. Voluntary workers insurance protects the volunteers themselves, directly, when they’re the ones who get hurt.
Relying on public liability alone leaves a real and predictable gap: the volunteer who twists an ankle setting up trestle tables, falls from a ladder decorating a hall, or is injured transporting equipment for an event has, in most cases, nowhere to turn if your organisation carries public liability but nothing else.
Why This Matters More for Smaller, Volunteer-Heavy Organisations
Larger charities with paid staff and dedicated risk management resources are often more likely to have already identified and closed this gap. It’s the smaller sporting clubs, local charities, church groups, and community associations, the ones run entirely by volunteers giving up their evenings and weekends, that are most likely to be operating with a coverage gap they don’t know exists.
These are also frequently the organisations least able to absorb the financial shock if something goes wrong. A serious injury to a volunteer, without appropriate cover in place, can mean the organisation is left facing difficult conversations, reputational damage within its own community, and in some cases direct financial exposure, precisely the outcome insurance is meant to prevent.
Protecting the People Who Make Your Organisation Possible
If your charity, club, church, or community organisation relies on volunteers, and the vast majority in Australia do, it’s worth asking a simple question: if one of your volunteers were seriously injured tomorrow while helping your organisation, what would actually happen for them?
If the honest answer involves uncertainty, or an assumption that “public liability probably covers it,” that’s a gap worth closing before an incident forces the question.
At Knightsbridge Insurance Group, we help charities, clubs, and community organisations of every size understand exactly where their volunteer coverage gaps sit, and put the right Voluntary Workers Insurance in place alongside your existing public liability cover, so the people who give their time to your cause are properly protected in return.
To talk through your organisation’s volunteer coverage, reach out to Ryan and the Knightsbridge team today.
Important Disclaimer: This article provides general information only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Voluntary workers insurance requirements and coverage vary significantly based on individual organisations, activities, and state legislation. Readers should assess their specific volunteer coverage needs and consult with qualified insurance professionals before making risk management decisions. Knightsbridge Insurance Group holds Australian Financial Services Licence 514855.