Camps, Day-cares, & Schools: Understanding Abuse and Molestation Coverage

Businesses that serve children have a special blessing and from and insurance perspective and additional risk.  The law deals with children differently than adults and ask such the duty owed to them is higher and the ability for their own actions to negate their right to recovery is diminished.  Abuse & Molestation and Incidental Malpractice are the two standard coverages above your general liability coverage that you should consider if you are working with children

ABUSE & MOLESTATION- this is a standard add-on for camps, schools, and day-cares.  When there is a claim of abuse or molestation this insurance coverage will kick in to provide a defense to the claim.  The key factors to consider are how insured is defined and whether the defense of the claim is included in the limit.  

Also, to reduce the price of this coverage and, for some carriers, to determine whether it offers coverage carriers will consider the hiring, training, and reporting procedures.  Background and reference checks and clear and communicated abuse reporting and investigating policies are the minimum preventative factors recommended.

We recommend our camps, schools, and day-cares have this coverage no matter the size.  Even one person entities should consider this coverage because it will defend against groundless claims.  If you don’t want coverage a camp, school, or daycare should strongly consider having an attorney on retain instead.

INCIDENTAL MALPRACTICE- Your general liability should include professional liability with the exception of medical procedures performed which are incidental to the main job of educating or supervising children.  This coverage would not cover a school nurse who is specifically hired to perform medical duties but will cover teachers and staff when applying band-aids or ice to surface wounds.  

Insurance for those camps, schools, and daycare that have field trips should also include some level of auto insurance coverage.  Those that have sports programs including dance should also offer participants accident insurance coverage.