The way family day care works for educators
Here’s the basics: insurance is a legal requirement for every single family day care educator. There are a lot of requirements, but this is a big one, mostly because of the cost.
People who want to be family day care providers must have a minimum $10 million public liability insurance policy:
- To put public liability in legal terms, that covers third party claims for negligence that results in bodily injury or property damage.
- Sometimes claims are framed that you were professionally negligent - “as an educator, you have a duty of care to look after my child”. Your professional indemnity insurance has to cover that.
- You can also have insurance coverage for personal accident for children. With those instances above, the policy can only respond if you as an educator were negligent. But if that child just falls over its own feet, there’s nothing you could have done about that. There’s no fault involved. The Personal Accident policy will reimburse the parent for out of pocket expenses and lump sum benefits for certain injuries.
- Public liability is claims-occurring. That means that as long as you had a policy in existence when an incident giving rise to a claim occurred, then you could stop care, stop your policy, and still be covered for that claim. Technically, a child doesn’t have to start an action until they’re 18, and then you’ve got the statute of limitations, too. So, a claim might not happen for years, and the educator might not even still be in business, or working at all, but the cover extends as long as the child may claim it.
Read more: My Family Day Care Educator Cover
FAMILY DAY CARE IN REALITY
Here’s the thing. I run an insurance business. I look at the way things are supposed to work, and I know there has to be a better way to do it. I know for a fact that women need insurance to be easy to purchase, pay for, maintain and understand. Many of these educators don’t have extensive legal training, and they often don’t earn huge amounts of money doing what they love. That makes it very difficult to pay up to $500 up front for a year’s worth of insurance. With most existing policies you can ask to pay it monthly, but you have to pay fees for the privilege.
Knowing how this sector works and how these women make money gave me the impetus to create Imalia’s Family Day Care Educator insurance policy.
We want to help women thrive in FAMILY DAY CARE
We want women to have competitively-priced options that are easy to implement and that don’t feel like a punch in the gut when it comes time to pay. We want women to have peace of mind. To have help. Family day care is an amazing service, and educators should be rewarded, not punished.
That’s why, with Imalia’s Pay-As-You-Go policy, we’ve committed to no extra costs. You pay monthly, for exactly the cover you need. We made a big decision to not go with a Premium Funding model. If you decide in three months time that Family Day Care isn’t for you and you've been paying monthly, you can cancel your policy - no debts, no fees. This is not just another insurance product. This is unique, and designed specifically for the special nature of Family Day Care educators.
Read more: My Home Business Cover
MORE THAN THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR FAMILY DAY CARE
There are other ways we’ve invested in this policy too. Imalia won’t charge dishonour fees or late fees (though your bank still might). We’ve also made a deal with our payments provider where you don’t have to shell out for the typical 1.5% credit card charge. And what’s more, we have a whole suite of products that cover everything a Family Day Care educator might need, from personal accident to cyber-insurance to home and contents.
If you’re just getting started in the business, we have 15 years of experience in the Family Day Care sector - we know what you need, and we know how to help.
This isn’t like any other insurance product. This is new. Unusual. This policy is designed to make it easier for educators to focus more on doing what they do best: nurturing our next generation.
If you are inspired and would like to join the revolutionary movement that Imalia is creating, you can request to join our Facebook group The Wolfpack, to share ideas and learn from other like-minded women.
This is an edited version of a blog that first appeared on LinkedIn.