Do I need home care insurance?
If your organisation is defined as any of the following*, you may benefit from the protection of a care home insurance policy:
- Personal care
- Nursing care
- Night care
- Carer respite services
- Household and gardening duties
*Please note that this is not a complete list of organisation types that may benefit from a home care insurance policy.
Simply put, standard business insurance doesn’t include vital protection against the specific risks of the care industry which could leave patients, staff and business vulnerable. While some insurance providers could patch together various policies to cover your liability, buildings, contents etc., this will likely leave holes in your cover for things like:
Medical malpractice insurance - Towergate offers one of the widest ranges of disease covers excluding only AIDS, Avian flu, Swine Flu and SARS.
Infectious disease cover - Cover against the break out of infections is an important protection for most businesses operating in the care industry. Towergate offer cover against all known diseases, but whoever you get insurance with, make sure it offers the widest protection possible.
Flexible liability cover - While most policies will include public liability cover at £5 million as standard (our policies do this too) there are times when you may need to temporarily or permanently raise this limit to £10 million in order to tender for a public contract. Try to find a policy which offers you flexible limits meaning you can raise the amount you’re covered by. This is so you won’t miss out on quality contracts that require higher levels of liability.
Directors and liability insurance - D&O insurance is a liability cover that protects your business against compensation claims brought about through an act of one of your directors or managers. It is important because these actions may not be covered by your other liability insurances. For example, this protects the personal assets of any director or officer of the company resulting from an error or omission, breach of duty or other matter whilst acting in such capacity for the company. The claim could be against them personally, not the company. This can leave them responsible for payments and could stop them operating in their job.