Non-Profit Organization Insurance discounts and questions
Covers what a charity, church, club or foundation is exposed to: the public at its events, the decisions its board makes, the volunteers who get hurt helping, and the funds a treasurer handles. Grantors, venues and landlords ask for it before they sign.
Discounts carriers commonly offer
- Package policy
- General liability, property, crime and hired and non-owned auto written together, with directors and officers often available from the same carrier at a package rate.
- Background checks and written safeguarding policies
- Documented screening of staff and volunteers who work with vulnerable people, which lowers or is required for the abuse and molestation rate.
- Volunteer driver programme
- Motor vehicle record checks and proof of personal auto insurance for every volunteer driver.
- Financial controls
- Dual signatures, a board treasurer separate from the bookkeeper and an annual review or audit, which reduce the crime rate.
- Claims-free history
- No liability, employment or crime claims over the carrier's look-back period.
Questions people ask
Our board members are volunteers. Can they really be sued?
Yes. State volunteer protection laws limit some claims against individual volunteers but not all of them, and they do not pay for a defence. Directors and officers coverage does, and experienced board candidates often ask whether it is in place before they agree to serve. The organisation itself is also a defendant in most of these claims, and the policy covers it as well.
A grant application asks for a certificate of insurance. What do they want?
Proof that the coverages and limits in the grant agreement are in force, and usually that the grantor is an additional insured on the liability policy. Send us the insurance section of the agreement. If the limits or coverages asked for are above what the policy carries, the policy has to be changed first; the certificate reports what exists and cannot promise more.
Do we need workers compensation if we have one paid staff member?
Each of the four states sets its own threshold for when an employer must carry it, and a single employee can be enough. It is a separate policy from the package and volunteer accident does not replace it, because it covers employees rather than volunteers. The analysis confirms the rule for your state and the cost for a small payroll.
Our treasurer handles all the money. Is that covered?
Only with a crime or fidelity section, which most package policies include only at a small limit or not at all. Employee dishonesty coverage on a non-profit form usually extends to volunteers who handle funds, but confirm the wording. Suppose a volunteer treasurer moves a few hundred dollars a month to a personal account over three years; the loss adds up to more than most small default limits, so the limit should be set from the amount of money the organisation handles in a year rather than left at the default.
We serve children. What does the carrier need from us?
Written policies on screening, supervision and reporting, background checks on staff and volunteers with unsupervised access, and evidence they are followed. Carriers underwrite the abuse and molestation section on those controls and will decline or limit it without them. The section also carries its own limit, which grantors and school districts often specify.