Protect Your Child Care Business from Risks with Child Care Center Insurance

Visitors walking into the center could slip and fall, a teacher or employee could cause damage to a student’s property, or a lawsuit could be filed against your child care center.

General liability insurance is a necessity for any business. It provides broad coverage when you are deemed liable and will pay to defend lawsuits alleging injuries or property damage which occurred as the result of your center’s operations.

Fire, weather, burst pipes, and other losses are frequent for child care centers given the large amount of physical space required to operate. These losses can cause significant damage to the school’s business personal property.

Business personal property coverage allows the center to replace property that has been damaged or destroyed by a covered cause of a loss. For a child care center, this may include property like chairs, tables, books, toys, materials, and supplies.

If one of your employees receives an injury or becomes ill due to a work-related occurrence, you are required by law to have the proper coverage in place.

State disability and workers' compensation protects your employees should a job-related injury or sickness occur during their course of employment. This coverage is required by law, so be sure you have it.

The internet has spun a whole new web of liability exposures. E-commerce, social networking, cloud storage, and other technologies bring great benefits to all businesses. But with these benefits also come challenges, including protection of privacy, data, and financial information of your employees and students.

Cyber liability coverage covers unauthorized access to electronic data or software within your network. It also provides coverage for spreading a virus, computer theft, extortion, or any unintentional act, mistake, error, or omission made by an employee. This coverage is quickly becoming more and more important as you embrace technology to help run your child care center.

What happens when your child care center faces a large liability loss that exceeds the basic limit of your standard policy?

A commercial umbrella policy provides high limits of insurance, typically between $2,000,000 and $10,000,000. Coverage is extended over your general liability insurance, workers' compensation, business auto, and directors and officer’s liability coverage. It provides a great safety net and helps ensure your school is well protected.

All child care centers and schools are at risk for professional liability claims to be brought against them for negligence.

Professional liability protects your teachers and child care employees. If your staff is sued due to negligence in relation to a child’s safety or for making an error in judgement, your center can also be sued.

When working with children or youth, there is always a risk that staff/owners could be accused of physical, sexual, or mental abuse.

If an employee or owner is accused of abuse, you need abuse/molestation coverage to protect your center or school from the possibility of significant financial loss. Even unfounded lawsuits are costly to defend.

Commercial auto is necessary if your center has company-owned vehicles and children are transported to and from school and/or field trips.

Commercial auto insurance can protect your center or school if an accident occurs or there is damage to a vehicle.

If you or your staff drive their own vehicle on business time or you rent vehicles in the business name to travel to meetings, conferences, or elsewhere, you face additional exposure and risk.

Hired and non-owned auto liability protects your staff if they are driving their own vehicle to run errands. Your center or school can be held liable for injuries or property damage if a driver is involved in an accident. The hired liability portion covers rented vehicles when listed in the business name for travel use.

Employment-related claims can be made by past or current employees, those who have applied for work, and even clients or potential clients.

Employment practices liability insurance can help protect your child care center from claims which may arise due to alleged negligence relating to discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, service refusal, or any other employee-related claim.

It’s possible that your child care center could incur losses if you offer employee benefits to your team.

The administration of benefit plans can be tricky. Employee benefits liability insurance help cover any losses resulting from many types of employee benefits plans such as health insurance, retirement plans, and more.

Everyone knows that children can be accident-prone. Often they trip and fall, collide with one another, or even knock out a tooth or break a bone, so it is important to obtain a student accident policy.

A student accident policy can cover children’s medical bills if they are injured at the center or on a sponsored field trip or activity. There are two options. Full excess reimburses secondary to the child’s health insurance plan and primary reimburses on a primary basis, regardless of the child’s current health insurance plan.