What cover should your charity insurance include?
When you’re purchasing or reviewing insurance arrangements for your charity, voluntary organisation or social enterprise, it can be extremely confusing.
There are numerous sections of cover included in ‘combined’ or package policies and different insurers may use different names, section titles and formats, adding to the confusion. What should be included in a charity policy? And how do you compare different policies?
To assess what may be important cover in a charity insurance policy you can examine CaSE Charity Insurance. This is a leading specialist charity insurance policy provided by a specialist insurer that insures over 4000 charities, voluntary organisations and faith-based groups in the UK. Included in the breakdown of cover below is a few alternative names or titles for different sections of cover; this should help you navigate other insurance policies when comparing the cover.
So, what’s included in CaSE’s specialist charity insurance?
Employers’, Public and Products Liability:
This section of cover is standard and the name doesn’t change, though you may hear it referred to as charity liability insurance. Employers’ Liability is a requirement for all organisations that have employees; Public Liability is necessary for most organisations that interact with any third parties, such as the public or service users and Products Liability – which often comes packaged with Public Liability – is important if you manufacture anything. These sections of cover are vital and almost all charities, businesses and other organisations will hold Employers’ Liability and Public Liability. As a charity, ensure that you volunteers are covered by either Employers’ or Public Liability.
Property Damage:
This section provides cover for your buildings, contents and assets; it may be called Material Damage, Buildings Insurance (that covers just buildings) or Contents Insurance (that covers just contents). You may look to have this cover provided on an ‘all risks’ basis, which means that all risks except those explicitly excluded are covered. In addition, you may wish to insure high-value items that are taken off the premises separately; CaSE Charity Insurance covers these items under the Specified Business Equipment section.
Trustee Indemnity:
Trustee Indemnity is essentially Directors and Offices insurance for your charity trustees. It may be known as TI, Directors and Officers, D&O, Management Liabilities Insurance or Executive Risks Insurance (which is CaSE Insurance’s stand-alone Trustee Indemnity Insurance). This provides cover for both the trustees and the organisation in case of a claim arising due to the negligence of a trustee.
Other sections of cover included in CaSE Charity Insurance that may go alongside TI (as they are also Management Liability insurances) or may be separate sections of cover include: Fidelity, which covers you for theft, loss of money or fraud by employees or volunteers; Professional Indemnity, which covers you for claims arising from a failure, error or omission related to your professional service provision and Employment Practices, which protects you in the case of employment disputes.
Legal Expenses:
This covers you against the potential costs of defending legal action against your organisation and may also be known and Legal Protection Insurance. The legal costs relating to claims under other sections of your policy, such as the legal costs around a property damage claim, should be covered by that section. However, Legal Expenses provides a level of cover for legal costs that do not arise from claims under other sections, such as defending a Charity Commission investigation.
These are just a few of the main sections of cover included in CaSE Charity Insurance. Hopefully, by explaining what they are and what they may be known as elsewhere, the process of choosing suitable insurance and comparing two policies, has been made less complicated. When deciding on insurance, the advice of an experienced, specialist charity insurer or broker is invaluable. CaSE Insurance are happy to provide a free, no-obligation review of your current insurance and risk management arrangements. Read more about our charity insurance and get in touch to arrange a quote.
