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Chris  Channon
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1 hour ago, Neil R said:

My BMFA 2022 renewal letter (and Vectis card) arrived on Xmas eve. But there seems to be an error on the 'Confirmation of Cover' part - which says I'm covered "until 31 December 2021"? Is anyone else seeing this? Or am I missing something?

If you log onto the BMFA membership system you can download your membership certificate from your member profile. No idea why you got an old one, but mine says 31 December 2022.

 

Dick

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2 hours ago, Neil R said:

My BMFA 2022 renewal letter (and Vectis card) arrived on Xmas eve. But there seems to be an error on the 'Confirmation of Cover' part - which says I'm covered "until 31 December 2021"? Is anyone else seeing this? Or am I missing something?

 

The reason for this is explained in the 1st paragraph of your BMFA Membership Confirmation email.

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Thanks Nick I had missed that, although it still confuses me slightly that the e-mail's attached version supposedly expires Dec 2022 (but will have the wrong Insurer name as of 1st Jan?) versus the posted version expiring end Dec 2021.

 

For completeness here's that 1st para cut and pasted:

 

"Thank you for signing up to be a member of the BMFA. Your membership documents are attached to this email and can also be downloaded from your membership profile at https://bmfa.azolve.com. We will be changing insurer from 1st January 2022. The membership document attached to this email contains the correct insurer details up to 31st December 2021. An updated document will be available for you to download from your profile from 1st January 2022."

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Re the insurance, it is not confusing at all. The current insurers will cover BMFA members until 31st December 2021 and that is what is shown on the certificate. But your membership (which includes insurance) is valid until 31st December 2022 from the date you renewed. So what the BMFA has told you and supplied to you is correct as they cannot issue an insurance certificate for the new insurer in advance whilst the current one is still in force and to whom a claim would be made should anything untoward happen before the 1st January 2022.

Then from the 1st January you can download the updated insurance certificate showing the new insurer's details. Simples!

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But that doesn’t explain why the electronic certificate attached to the renewal e-mail is dated to Dec 2022? (is that cert even valid after Jan 1st?). Why would they post me a cert for the residue of 2021 - was I not already covered by the previous year’s cert? Why are the posted and emailed versions not harmonised? And why does someone who has chosen and paid for the postal option not get sent any of the accompanying clarifications that were provided in the email? (Note also that the postal cert is different to the online one, without my name or membership dates, it just cross references to the membership card). Yes I know this is all down in the weeds, and the answer is to download the new cert after 1st Jan, but right now the position is that, in response to a timely renewal, I’ve been sent two certs, a posted one which definitely isn’t valid Jan onwards, and an e-mail one which appears questionable (?) for 2022. I bet I’m not the only one who finds this all a bit odd and confusing! 

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The 'Start' and 'Expiry' dates shown at the top of the electronic document refers to your membership of the BMFA :-

 

"THIS IS TO CERTIFY that the person named above is a fully paid member of the Association until the expiry date shown, and is covered by Liability and
Personal Accident insurance held by the Society of Model Aeronautical Engineers Ltd of which details are given in the following schedule:-"

 

Which if you renew before the 31st December 2021 runs from the date a member renewed until the end of 2022. Then being a fully paid member of the BMFA they are then also covered by the third party insurance held by the BMFA for that period (which like in this case can be by more than one insurance underwriter). When the document is issued it can only include in the schedule details of the insurer providing the cover in force at the time of issue. If the electronic version had been sent showing that the membership 'Expiry' date was the 31st December 2021 to coincide with the end of the insurance cover by the current insurers, members would probably complain that they have paid their membership fee and the 'Expiry' date should be 31st December 2022, and then would probably complain more if they were then told "oh that is okay, you just need to download the new document with the Expiry date of the 31st December 2022". Rejigging the electronic document system to allow for different expiry dates to be shown on the schedule and the membership card is not the work of a moment and costs money. The difference between the 'personalised' and the generic versions of the schedule is probably due (I assume) to the BMFA opting for it to be 'personalised' when setting up the new online / electronic version as being 'automatic' as it should not increase the workload for the BMFA office staff.

So it looks like the BMFA made the choice to keeps thing simple with an explanation, so no problem for me to understand (and I am no genius!).

 

I must mention that I don't work for or have any connection with workings of the BMFA other than being a member, but I do have some experience of designing and running automated electronic document systems. I think that having the option to download a personalised membership and insurance schedule is great (well done BMFA) - no need to wait for the post to deliver (or not) the membership cards etc and it keeps costs and therefore our subs down (so I am not sure why would anyone who can download the electronic version opts to receive one through the post as well?!), and having to download and print/save the updated version of the insurance schedule after the 1st of January can hardly be considered much of an 'inconvenience'.

 

But, there again having run systems for clubs and businesses, I really should not be surprised and should expect that there are always some who will look to be confused rather than try to understand why things are being done in a particular way and then complain, especially when something has to change and accept that administrators/office staff on the whole try their best to serve their members/customers. 

 

Happy New Year!

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Chris, you are completely missing the point that I went for the postal option. I suspect from your comments that you haven’t actually seen what you get with same? The posted stuff normally provides everything you need, i.e membership card and insurance cert. The card was as expected, although contrary to the actual renewal date (mid Dec in my case), it actually shows a *valid from* date of 1st Jan 2022. All of the membership date preamble you have discussed / quoted above simply does not appear on the posted version of the confirmation of cover. Instead the one sent out just simply says: “This is to certify that holders of a current BMFA Membership card are covered (until  31 December 2021) by Liability and Personal Accident insurance held by the Society of Model Aeronautical Engineers Ltd. Details are given in the following schedule.” The rest (from Legal Liability downwards) is then as per the electronic version. 

 

So as supplied (in the post), with no included explanation of the mutually exclusive dates, I was confused. By adding the original question, I now understand that the postal offering is incomplete this time, and I’ll need to download an insurance cert later. Please don’t regard this as a complaint, rather an attempt to clarify my own initial confusion, and perhaps an attempt to help others in the same position. 

 

The benefit of the posted option is that you get the Vectis (discount) card. I assume the additional costs for this option are covered by the extra fee paid.

Edited by Neil R
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