Q: how many archaeologists does it take to ruin an industry?

[Sith]

Basically if you put your tools say down and someone else trips up on them you are liable (even though you have paid your national insurance). Now there are a lot of people out there who work on someone else’s insurance or a company insurance and this is where it gets very difficult to ascertain if the individual is a mortimer sorry archaeologist.

As it stands I am not sure if professional indemnity is required or indeed if it is possible that a trowel should have professional indemnity. There is also the limits to this public indemnity insurance for tools. Just yesterday the client supplied a 17 ton tracked machine for an evaluation in their clients field. Now the brief said that it was to be used under archaeological control which I very presumptuously presumed that was me, such is another essence of currently being a professional archaeologist, the presuming that one is and that one has to be one to take archaeological control.

Argh! Insurance again:

Professional Indemnity: Covers you if (heaven forbid) you make a mistake in the professional services you have provided leading to a dispute with a client.

Public Liability: Covers you against claims arising from members of the public (including trespassers and sub-contractors) standing on a badly positioned hoe and ending up with a face like Wile E Coyote.

Employer's Liability: Covers you against claims from your own employees when they fall off the barrow run of death while laughing at the bloke with the hoe in his face.

'National Insurance' whether you've paid it or not doesn't come into it.