Understanding how to protect your childcare facility with solid business liability insurance
It was always your dream to have a childcare facility growing up. You love children, and think it’s an amazing opportunity to see them grow and learn, watching them read for the first time, take the initial first steps, and make new friends with other children. Your facility is highly rated, parents can’t recommend you enough to their friends and colleagues, and you make good money doing something that you love. To ensure you never have to give up your dream, good business insurance is essential in long-term continued security and success.
Included below are some types of insurance you should research and purchase for your childcare organization.
Commercial insurance: Within your facility, you have so many important and expensive things. Learning tables, chairs, play mats, toys, art supplies, and books. These have been collected and treasured over the years, and it may be hard to even put a price tag on them, because they feel priceless. However, it is important that you work with your business insurance provider to discuss your assets, and help determine its worth and the policy that is sufficient. The building is obviously a major component of this. Whether or not you rent or own, the value of the building must be secured through a commercial insurance policy. There is always a risk for the unexpected to happen whether it is a bad storm or a fire that started at the adjacent building. If you do not secure the right insurance plan, a simple accident or mistake may be the end of your business – so make sure you never have to face this devastating reality.
Business liability insurance: For the most part, children are very durable creatures. They have the ability to run around without ever seeming to make contact with anything, and if they do, they seem to bounce off things like Teflon without a scrape. However, when you are solely responsible for other people’s children, there is a risk that you can be held accountable for something that happens while they are in your care. Innocuous falls that require a trip to the emergency room, a food allergy (another child shared his sandwich with his buddy) stopped their breathing, a bad reaction to medication – all of these scary situations are a possibility. Of course, your care is exceptional and you do everything in your power to keep children safe. You take great pride in this. It’s just that when accidents happen, parents often need to hold someone accountable – and this could result in a difficult, costly, and emotional legal battle. Your business insurance provider can help you minimize these risks with good business liability insurance.
If you are in the beginning stages of finding a business insurance provider, talk to your colleagues and other childcare facility owners. Especially if a provider is knowledgeable about this industry and its complexities, this could result in a very effective and powerful policy. Also look for providers like Norton Insurance, based in the Northeast, that focus on customized solutions designed to work specifically for you, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all solution that will not have the same protection.
