As a dedicated school director or administrator, you know how much duty there is in shaping young minds. Your dedication is unshakable, from making sure students are safe to making sure everything runs smoothly. But have you thought about how to protect your school from risks you can’t see coming?
Why School Insurance Matters
School insurance isn’t just about paperwork; it’s about securing the future of your students, staff, and facilities. Here’s why it matters:
Fire & Perils
Get your buildings, books, furniture covered from fire, riots, lightning strikes, and related perils
Burglary
Protect school property including furniture, lab equipment, books, and others after a forcible/violent entry/exit.
Directors and Officers Liability
Cover personal claims against directors for breach of duty, neglect, or error misstatement by the school as directors or officials. Read More
Student Personal Accident Cover
Get compensation if your pupils suffers a serious injury or passes away as a consequence of an accident.
Loss of Money
Coverage includes the possibility of theft, vandalism, or the loss of funds while in transit or while on the school premises.
Work Injury Benefits Act (WIBA)
Covers the school for injuries or deaths of full-term, contract, or casual employees while on duty under the WIBA ACT of 2007. Read More
Employers Liability
Get coverage in the event your employee sues the school under common law for workplace injuries or illnesses. Read More
School Bus Insurance
Cover Institutional vehicles such buses, vans, trucks in school activities against strike, civil unrest, collision, fire, third-party liability, and floods. Read More
Other Insurable Risks Include:
All Risks
Cover computers, laptops, photocopiers, printers, fax machines, and other mobile electronics in case of accidental breakage, theft, or fire. Read More
Public Liability
Covers third-party legal liability claims for injuries, deaths, and property damage caused by negligent activities of the school and its staff, both on and off school premises. Read More
Fidelity Guarantee
Covers damage to school assets due to employee fraud or dishonesty, if found within 6 months.
Group Personal Accident
Pays medical bills for accidental injury to Directors, and Teaching/Non-Teaching school which may result in, physical impairment, disability, or death. Read More
Who Would Benefit From A School Insurance?
This inclusive coverage is designed to benefit various types of schools, such as primary and secondary schools, boarding schools, private schools, international schools, specialized and technical institutions, as well as colleges and universities.
A Visualization of Risks and Solutions
Use the yellow hot spots and explore how school insurance can help protect against common risks.
What would you do if a fire impacted the operation of your school? Or what if a pipe bursting caused a system outage? These and other events can destroy your ability to teach or hold class, and may require an alternative location. Public, private, and charter schools need protection not only to the building facility and property within the school, but also the business of running the school.
It is critical you protect the school with business income and extra expense coverage to ensure your school facility and the things you use to operate your school can be put back into place quickly or in an alternate location. Business income insurance also helps cover the loss of income when you cannot run the school because of covered property damage.
Fire, weather, burst pipes, and other losses are frequent for schools 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 school to replace property that has been damaged or destroyed by a covered cause of a loss. For a school, this may include property like desks, chairs, tables, books, materials, and supplies.
Is your school subject to wind, rain, hailstorms, hurricanes, blizzards, or other weather events? These situations can cause significant damage to a school building or roof, not to mention the dangers that lurk within like a burst pipe or cafeteria grease fire.
Building coverage protects the permanent school structure from most weather perils, burst pipes, a fire, and other losses.
A visitor walking into the school slips and falls, a teacher or employee causes damage to a student’s property, and even certain claims of slander all pose a real risk to your school.
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 school operations.
There are hundreds of reports each year of children being sexually abused by teachers, coaches, and volunteers. Countless more are abused without any report being made.
Obtain the proper abuse and molestation coverage to protect the school in the event an allegation arises. In addition, consider having a written document to address how to prevent sexual abuse from happening and what to do in the event of an allegation.
School volunteers and employees often use personal vehicles to do work for the school.
Make sure to add hired and non-owned auto coverage to the school’s insurance policy to cover this exposure. Also, check the motor vehicle records of anyone who transports students.
Officers, directors, and board members are exposed to increased factors and can be held accountable for acts that claim negligence in the performance of their duties including discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination of employees, inefficient administration or supervision, waste of assets, misleading reports, and other misrepresentations.
Educator’s legal liability insurance protects the decision-makers of the school from lawsuits and claims. Instead of suing the individuals directly, the lawsuit would be defended by the school’s ELL policy. Most people who serve on a board in a volunteer capacity should demand this coverage before serving.
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 school.
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.
What happens when your school 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.
Security in schools is becoming a larger issue as attacks have increased in recent years.
Every school should have a security plan. This plan should detail where students go in the event of an emergency, which entrances are open during school hours, who should contact the authorities, how to spot someone who may pose a security risk and how to react to someone who is trying to cause harm to the students and faculty.
School fundraisers may raise a large amount of cash, or a number of administrators/teachers may have access to a school credit card/account numbers.
Crime coverage can provide coverage against cash stolen on or off the premises, and can ensure that the groups within the school raising the money aren’t left in the dark if a cash box goes missing. Employee dishonesty coverage can help protect against a staff member’s scheme to steal money from the school or district.
Violent acts by students are, thankfully, infrequent on the whole, but they do happen. Violent acts are often excluded in one’s general liability policy. If not dealt with promptly, these can affect the school’s reputation and, if a private school, the bottom line.
Crisis response coverage can provide reimbursement for services like crisis management, public relations guidance, and counseling services to help staff, students, and families grieve.
How Can the Policy Protect the Institution's Assets, Staff/Students, and Profit?
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Physical Assets: Coverage for buildings, desks, and educational equipment.
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Staff and Students: Addressing risks related to faculty, staff, and student well-being.
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Profit and Continuity: Business interruption coverage to ensure financial stability during disruptions.
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Legal Protection: Protecting against claims of discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, and negligence.
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