What is school & daycare insurance? What does it cover?
Understanding Daycare and School Insurance Coverage
Insurance coverage for schools and daycares helps protect against certain covered events. These insurance policies can be tailored for nursery schools, pre-k schools and daycares, licensed daycare facilities, kindergartens, head start and charter schools, grade schools, high schools, trade schools, and advanced educational institutes such as colleges or universities.
Types of Coverage Offered for Private and Public Daycares and Schools
School and daycare insurance should cover some or all of the following:
Property Insurance
Property insurance covers outside your building and the contents inside if they were to become damaged due to a covered event, like a storm, lightning strike, accidental fire, and falling objects from the sky. Property insurance does not, however, cover flooding. If you need flood insurance, please let our agents know.
Coverage for Crimes Committed on the Property
If your school is broken into by a student or third party not affiliated with the school, this policy helps you replace what was stolen and damaged during the break-in.
Crime coverages can also include the organization’s financial interest in money and securities on or off-premises, employee theft, and forgery or alteration in addition to many other coverages.
During the 2017–2018 school year, 80% of public schools reported one or more incidents of theft, violence or other crimes, amounting to 1.4 million incidents.
Breakdown of Critical Equipment
Critical equipment includes items like your electrical system, phone system, plumbing, and HVAC systems. If these items break down or stop working, this coverage may be able to help you pay for repairs or a replacement. This coverage may also include items like computers, printers, and other school and office equipment. It’s important to note that this coverage does not repair or replace critical systems that failed as a result of improper maintenance or a lack of maintenance.
General Liability Coverage
General liability helps protect you against allegations of neglect. For example: if you have a loose handrail on a staircase and someone falls as a result of that loose handrail while holding a digital tablet, this insurance coverage would help pay for any injuries to the person and the replacement of the broken tablet.
Medical Insurance for Accidents on the Property
If someone trips and falls on your property or falls off a piece of playground equipment, this insurance coverage would help pay for the associated medical expenses whether or not you are legally liable for the accident that caused the injury.
Errors and Omissions Insurance
Errors and Omissions Insurance is a form of professional liability insurance. It helps protect you against lawsuits that arise due to a client believing that you gave them faulty or inaccurate information that resulted in a financial loss.
Employment Practices Liability Insurance
While everyone always hopes that their staff members will act professionally, unfortunately, this isn’t the case in the workplace sometimes. Employment practices liability insurance helps protect you if an employee claims that they are being harassed or discriminated against.
Directors and Officers Liability Insurance
This insurance coverage specifically protects the director of the school and his or her immediate officers in regards to personal liability. If these individuals are sued as a result of their work with the school or daycare facility, this coverage helps pay for legal expenses. This policy is separate from other types of liability policies.
Employee Benefits Liability Insurance
This insurance protects your organization against claims arising out of the failure to advise or mistakes made in administering benefit plans to employees.
Abuse Allegations Insurance
While no school wants to think about abuse or misconduct of staff members occurring on or off the property with a student, it can happen, and it’s best to be prepared. If someone accuses one of your staff members of abuse, this insurance helps pay for legal help and associated lawsuits.
Cyber Liability
Cyber liability helps pay for damages that occur to do a breach or theft of personal information. It is a good idea for schools that have personal information stored online and allow for payments to be accepted via the website.
Commercial Car Insurance
If your school has vehicles that are used in the business or to transport students to and from the school or daycare, you should consider getting a commercial auto insurance policy. This helps financially protect you if a vehicle were to get into an accident while conducting school business. Your organization will also want to consider hired or non-owned auto liability insurance which will protect the school’s liability interest for rented vehicles or vehicles that the school does not own.
Commercial Umbrella Insurance
When considering the cost of accidents or liability for your organization you will also want to consider a commercial umbrella policy. This policy provides additional limits of liability for a claim that goes over and above your primary liability limits on your primary insurance policies. The umbrella can cover over certain policies such as:
- general liability
- errors or omissions liability
- employee benefits liability
- sexual abuse liability
- commercial auto liability including hired and non-owned auto liability
- directors and officers liability
School and Daycare Insurance with Fearnow
If you have a school or a daycare facility, we can help ensure that you have the right types of insurance coverage, and we can provide you with a free risk consultation. We customize your insurance policy to specifically meet the needs of the school or daycare. To learn more about our daycare and school insurance policies, give us a call at 813-689-8878.
