In a recent New Jersey case regarding the allegations that a board of education was aware of the inappropriate conduct of a teacher with students, the United States District Court for the district of New Jersey held that the board’s commercial general liability insurer properly disclaimed that their policy didn’t cover “abusive acts.” While it’s not something you want to worry about, it’s imperative to have staffing insurance coverage that includes abusive acts in the event that one does occur.
While most insurance companies include their abusive acts policy with a general liability policy, World Wide does it differently. Separate limits with individual policies. This blog is going to discuss Abusive Acts Liability coverage in detail, with everything you need to know.
When You’ll Need Coverage
Abusive acts coverage is what protects the insured from claims against others (not the insured or employees). And with separate policies, everyone can have coverage. Abusive acts comes in handy for allegations of abuse, namely sickness, physical injury, disease, mental anguish, mental injury, or shock or fright or death. Some highlights of our program:
- Duty to defend
- Individual policy – separate limits
- No shared aggregate
- Occurrence form
- Protects insured against third party abusive act claims
- Coverage is not limited to alleged or actual sexual misconduct
- If investigations and counseling are needed, there’s supplemental income for that
- Coverage is worldwide for those in the United States
- If a public relations professional is needed, then there’s supplemental income to pay them
This kind of insurance is important to have because you can’t play when it comes to sexual misconduct. If someone in your company (or you) have a claim filed against you, this insurance coverage will protect you from spending a lot of money on lawsuits.
Coverage Exclusions
Here’s an example of when this kind of when you need coverage, but you don’t handle things the right way. In Montville Township Board of Education v. Zurich American Insurance Co., the teacher Jason Fennes worked at the school from 1998 to 2010 and had multiple issues with children during that time. There were three complaints and allegedly, the Montville board failed to disclose to the law about the complaints. According to the insurance companies policy, the Montville board was liable because of the fact that they knew about the abuse prior to the start of their policy renewal. To top it off the coverage didn’t expand to the insured’s employees. So make sure you understand your insurance policy before anything.
About World Wide Specialty Programs
For the last 50 years, World Wide Specialty Programs has dedicated itself to providing the optimal products and solutions for the staffing industry. As the only insurance firm to be an ASA commercial liability partner, we are committed to that partnership and committed to using our knowledge of the industry to provide staffing firms with the best possible coverage. For more information about Staffing Professional Liability Insurance or any other coverage, we have available to protect your staffing business, give us a call at (800) 245-9653 to speak with one of our representatives.