At dot2dot insurance brokers, they are always being asked questions regarding insurance cover for private day cares. One such question they were asked recently was: "Do nurseries need to have Professional Indemnity insurance?" Below is the answer . . .

Professional Indemnity insurance policies cover your Legal Liability for loss or damage to Third Parties arising out of your professional negligence or breach of professional duty. Traditionally the companies that would purchase this type of cover are those who provide an advisory service for a fee such as solicitors, accountants, insurance brokers. However although a nursery business charge fees the service provided centres around the care of children and not purely about giving advice. This is an important distinction and why our view is that there are three key areas of cover needed as follows:

Public Liability 

This covers your legal liability for any injury or damage to third parties or their property. The key area here is the injury to children

Medical Malpractice

We know that more and more nurseries are providing care for children with specialist medical needs often resulting in staff being trained in the use of epipens and feeding tubes to name just a few. In addition, you apply first aid, administer prescribed medicines or when necessary over the counter preparations such as calpol. All cover for these activities is provided by the Medical Malpractice section of the policy as it will protect you if a third party alleges that your nursery staff have made an error or omission. Please note that not all insurance companies provide cover for non-prescribed medicines.

Nursery Nurse Professional Risk

The majority of incidents in a nursery would be covers by the above two however to ensure there are no gaps Nursery Nurse Professional Risk should be incorporated. This cover specifically relates to the failure of a nursery nurse in her professional duty resulting in the injury or death of a child in their care.

As it could be very difficult to distinguish between these covers if an allegation was made we recommend they are provided by one insurer with the same limit of indemnity.

It is a difficult question to answer definitively so it is always best to check the cover provided by your own insurance advisor if you have any worries or concerns.