Snowmobiling is as much a part of Maine’s winter as the snow itself.

But if the Legislature can’t resolve skirmishes over how to use liability insurance to protect snowmobile clubs and the landowners whose permission makes the state’s 12,000-mile trails system a reality, the $300 million industry could be at risk.

Without insurance, clubs could be forced to mount expensive defenses to lawsuits, or even ordered to pay medical costs whenever someone injures himself on a trail. Landowners also might remove their land from the trail system because of the risk.

“I think everybody realizes how important this is,” said Bob Meyers of the Maine Snowmobile Association. “Nobody wants to pull the plug on snowmobiling.”

The issue is twofold. First, the Legislature has agreed to consider a bill requiring every ATV and snowmobile rider in the state to be insured, just like car drivers. Second, snowmobile clubs are struggling to find affordable insurance for their trail grooming activities.

Currently, only a handful of Mainers voluntarily insure their sleds and ATVs, though most clubs do. The governor’s ATV Task Force has recommended requiring individual liability insurance for both ATVs and snowmobiles, in part to encourage responsible riding, but primarily as a means of protecting property owners whose land is being destroyed by “rogue riders.”

Ronald Collins, R-Wells, drafted the bill requiring personal liability insurance at the request of several of his constituents.

“People want some kind of recourse, some compensation for this damage caused by a very small minority of operators,” Collins said.

But rental businesses, like Matt Polstein’s Twin Pine Rentals in Millinocket, fear that the industry could suffer unintended consequences because of the state’s good intentions.

“This could put the rental business out of business,” Polstein said.

A prevalence of lawsuits in other states and Canada has exacerbated the high cost of insurance. In Maine, an individual snowmobiler pays between $150 and $600 for liability insurance and a club can pay upward of $1,000 annually, according to Meyers’ informal surveys of MSA’s 16,000 members and nearly 300 clubs.

However, Polstein said he hasn’t even been able to find a company that will provide insurance to cover the people who rent his snowmobiles.

“[Insurance companies] don’t know who’s riding, or how qualified they are,” Polstein explained.

And at a recent hearing on the ATV Task Force’s findings, riders testified that requiring expensive liability insurance could actually encourage people not to register their vehicles – already a problem in Maine.

“I’ve got nothing against liability insurance – the cost is just too much for some people in some situations. They won’t do it, even if they have to do it,” said Norm Roberts of Searsmont.

Past attempts to require individual liability coverage have failed, often due to public opposition.Throughout North America, the snowmobile liability issue is reaching crisis proportions.

In New York last winter, 9,000 miles of snowmobile trails were temporarily closed when snowmobile clubs lost their liability coverage, either because the insurer dropped the snowmobile business or because of tenfold rate hikes.

The profitable snowmobile tourist season was saved only because the state negotiated an umbrella policy totaling more than $800,000 – about $5,000 per club. The cost is now eating up a third of the New York State Snowmobile Association’s total annual budget.

In Ontario, insurance premiums for snowmobile clubs cost the province $300,000 annually in the mid-1990s. Today, the total cost is nearly $3 million per year.

Here in Maine, some clubs saw recent rate increases between 300 and 400 percent, said Meyers.

“They kept paying it,” he said. “They were scrimping, but they were paying.”

Rates are going up for all types of insurance, as a result of an economic decline and the impact of September 11 claims, experts have said.

Though no law requires clubs in Maine to hold liability insurance, nearly all do out of fear of lawsuits resulting from injuries on the trails that they maintain, Meyers said.

“If we can’t fix this, the clubs won’t be able to groom, because they won’t be protected,” he said. “Unfortunately, anybody can sue anybody for anything.”

About 60 of Maine’s 287 clubs lost their insurance in November when a local company considered getting out of the snowmobile business altogether, and ended up refusing to cover trail-grooming activities. The company did not return a call seeking comment.

Glenburn Lakeside Riders Snowmobile Club was among those that had policies revoked, said club president Tom Pinkham. The notice came out of the blue and offered no explanation, he said.

The club shopped around and found another insurer, but because of staggered policy dates, will be forced to buy two policies, at $800 apiece, to make it through this season.

Going without insurance just wasn’t an option, Pinkham said.

“You never know when something is going to happen. It could come back onto the club, or even back onto the members,” he said.

“We’re dealing with a lot of private landowners. Nobody wants to get sued,” added Jim White, president of the Eastern Maine Snowmobile Club in Holden.

Several other insurance companies are rumored to be considering dropping snowmobile coverage, out of a belief that the snowmobile business is too risky, Meyers said, adding that such a perception is incorrect.

Last year’s 16 snowmobile fatalities set a record for Maine, but Meyers doesn’t believe there’s a link between the year’s 401 accidents and rising insurance rates here. The ratio of accidents to registered snowmobiles has remained steady in Maine, he said.

However, the state links the insurance companies’ decision to drop snowmobile policies to a potential lawsuit over last season’s first fatality, in which a 15-year-old New Gloucester boy was killed in a crash that occurred when he drove into a chain stretched across a road in Gray.

Meyers has no interest in associationwide coverage like New York uses, for fear that a single lawsuit could harm every club in the state.

“When something happens, everybody loses their liability insurance all at once,” he said.

Instead, the Maine Snowmobile Association is working with the governor’s office and representatives from the Bureau of Parks and Lands, the Bureau of Insurance, and the Attorney General’s office to draft a solution.

Representatives of the agencies and the state snowmobile association believe that Maine’s landowner liability law can be clarified to provide some degree of protection for clubs. The law currently states that a landowner can only be held responsible if his “intentional or reckless actions” caused the injury on his property.

Jeff Pidot, an assistant state attorney general, believes that the snowmobile clubs that groom trails could claim the same type of protection.

In fact, the state’s legal research turned up a New Hampshire case in which a snowmobile club was not held liable for injuries that occurred on the trail that they maintained.

Pidot is working with state agencies to write an addition to Maine’s landowner liability law so that Maine snowmobile clubs will expressly be given protection. Such action could help lower liability insurance costs for clubs.

But even if legislators approve the change during this winter’s short session, the new law won’t likely take effect until the 2004-2005 snowmobile season.

For this year, snowmobile clubs will just have to pay their high premiums and take their chances.

“We’ll make it [through] this winter,” Meyers said. “But it’s going to be rough.”