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As a specialist care insurance broker, we work with a lot of domiciliary care providers to help them source the right cover.
Whilst there are some fantastic policies across the market provided by us and our competitors there are some sub-standard and some policies that are simply not fit for purpose. In this blog, I would like to explain some things to be aware of when sourcing insurance and dealing with brokers to find the right insurance for you and your business.
No, it's not. When we see some care policies that exclude basic covers required by a care company it becomes clear that it's important to work with a broker that understands the industry and also a broker that is able to work carefully with underwriters to build the right cover.
Recently I've seen possibly the worst policy which excludes the following and this was for a regulated business providing personal care:
It doesn't take a huge amount of discernment to see that this policy would provide next to no insurance for the activities a domiciliary care company carries out and Whilst this kind of policy is not the norm, it illustrates the point of working with a provider that knows what they're doing.
There are other policies out there that have restrictive exclusions or warranties on them and these should be considered with extreme care before a decision to buy is made; as a customer you don't want to think you have cover but then when it comes to it the policy you paid thousands of pounds for doesn't fully protect you. More importantly, if there are such exclusions your broker should be highlighting these to you and being completely transparent about them.
Abuse on a claims made basis - this means if you don't claim during the policy year you won't be covered. Abuse can take years to come out so this is often like insurers saying they won't cover abuse at all, although in fairness some insurers will add a retroactive date. A defined abuse wording which leaves a lot of to interpretation - surely you want a policy that will just protect you from abuse and not involve meeting loads of conditions to be triggered.
If you have directors and officers cover to £25k you need to consider what this covers? Do you have £25k or more of assets? If so, then you need higher cover. Also don't forget any add-on D&O policy is likely to miss two key components of D&O cover: Corporate Legal Liability (protecting the limited company, think CQC fines etc) and Employment Practices Liability (think breach of duty, discrimination) - these areas are crucial for a care business and D&O without these it’s simply not fit for purpose.
You could argue as a business owner it's down to you to make sure you're insured properly, and I would somewhat agree but if you're busy running a care business you likely don't have time to review every detail of your insurance. This is where a good broker comes in, each level of cover should be reviewed every year, perhaps you have increased clerical staff and therefore the number of computers and need higher limits of cover. Relying on historic contents sum insured figures might not cut it, your broker should be checking the facts every year, just like you would make sure a service users care plan is regularly updated.
If you don't work with the right broker, you might be purchasing insurance that doesn't protect you sufficiently and as per that recent case I saw perhaps it doesn’t protect you at all! If your policy has exclusions or restrictions in it then you need to make sure your broker is explaining these to you, and if they're not, then why not?
Insurance broking is about transparency not just providing a policy that ticks most of the boxes, if you can work with a transparent broker that accesses the right insurers then you'll find you can get the right cover more often than not at a fair price.
How carefully do you review your insurance each year? Are you sure of what the policy covers and what it doesn't cover? Feel free to discuss this with me on 01273 424904.
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