How much is liability insurance for a daycare in Florida?

Do you own a daycare in Florida? According to ABC Learning Center, there are nearly 7,000 childcare centers in the state of Florida, and they should all have liability insurance in order to help mitigate the costs of certain risks. After all, children or staff may experience accidents on the property. The weather could damage the building and vandals could damage the outdoor play equipment. Let’s take a look at liability insurance for daycares and how much it costs.

Daycare Liability Insurance Costs in Florida

The costs of daycare insurance are dependent on many different factors. In general, daycare liability insurance costs range from $500 to $2,200 a year. Most liability policies for daycares provide $1 million dollars in coverage per claim and $2 million in total coverage. It’s important to note that the estimated liability insurance cost is only for the general liability policy. If you need other types of insurance, like commercial car insurance, property insurance or workers compensation, those policies will also have their costs.

Types of Daycares

If you own a licensed daycare center, kindergarten, nursery school or other type of childcare facility, you should have a good liability insurance policy. Of course, the type of liability policy you choose will be dependent on the type of daycare you own. Most daycares can be classified into two categories, including commercial and in-home.

Commercial Daycares

Commercial daycares are usually in dedicated centers. These provide a more formal environment, and parents who choose them usually do so because of the classroom-like environments, broader socialization opportunities for their children and better childhood learning opportunities. They’re also often licensed and accredited.

In-Home Daycares

In-home daycares are daycare centers that are located inside someone’s home, usually a professional caregiver. These can have many benefits over a commercial daycare center in that it’s a residential setting and children usually get more time with their caregivers because the child-to-carer ratio is smaller.

Liability Insurance for Daycares in Florida

The type of daycare you own will help determine the types of liability insurance you need.

Liability Insurance for Commercial Daycares

Commercial daycare centers often need more insurance than in-home daycares. The policies chosen should protect against financial losses from claims of personal injury, property damage and physical injuries.

Liability Insurance for In-Home Daycares

In-home daycares also need a general liability policy. If you’re new to the in-home daycare business, you may think that your homeowners policy covers any child in your home. However, homeowners insurance policies aren’t designed to cover at-home businesses. Instead, they’re designed to cover the homeowner in the event that the home or an outbuilding is damaged by a covered event, and if a visitor who does not live in the home happens to get injured or or experience property damage while visiting. Your homeowners policy won’t necessarily cover you if a child you are being paid to watch is injured.

This means that you need a daycare insurance policy along with your homeowners insurance coverage if you’re caring for children in your home.

Daycare Liability Insurance Types

Daycares in Florida should have a general liability policy, professional liability, property insurance and abuse liability coverage.

  • General Liability – These policies help financially protect your daycare if someone gets injured on the property or if someone’s property is damaged. It can also protect you against third-party claims of harm from advertisements or promotions that your daycare may run.
  • Property Insurance – protects your daycare center if the building is damaged due to a covered event.
  • Professional Liability – Professional liability insurance is sometimes referred to as errors and omissions insurance. This insurance helps financially protect your daycare if you’re accused of providing professional advice that causes harm.
  • Abuse Liability – This is sometimes referred to as sexual abuse and molestation insurance. This helps financially protect your daycare if one of your employees is accused of physically, mentally or emotionally harming a child.
  • Workers Compensation – Workers compensation helps pay for injuries or illnesses that your employees experience due to working in your daycare.

In addition to these three types of insurance, you may also want to consider:

  • Medical Accident Coverage – This helps further financially protect you against claims of physical injury. Medical accident coverage helps pay any medical expenses if someone were to get injured at your daycare.
  • Commercial Car Insurance – If your daycare transports children to and from various locations, you’ll want to have a good commercial car insurance policy.
  • Crime Coverage – If your daycare is the victim of a left or vandalism, crime coverage helps pay for the losses.

Getting Daycare Insurance in Florida with Fearnow

If you need liability insurance for your daycare, we can help you find the right policy at Fearnow in Florida. We have the ability to look through hundreds of policies from many different insurance carriers in order to find you the best insurance policy for your daycare. We can help you find general liability insurance, property insurance, commercial auto insurance, professional liability insurance and workers compensation insurance as well as many other types of business insurance policies.

To learn more about how we can help you ensure that your daycare is fully insured, give us a call at 813-689-8878.