An agent's perspective
Tom Fallon, seniorvice president of Bollinger, Inc, Short Hills, N.J., has beeninsuring child care centers since the 1980s. He stresses theimportance of maintaining key coverages for child care clients,including sexual abuse and molestation coverage. "Many insurersprovide this coverage with defense cost outside the limits as anendorsement to the general liability policy," he said. "This shouldbe sought on every child care center insurance policy."

A frequently overlooked area is contents coverage. "A child carecenter should not only know building values for insurance purposes,but they should know what they have in contents and the currentreplacement values to establish limits," Fallon said. "Centers needto pay particular attention to business interruption insurancevalues to avoid losing teachers and revenue in the event of aproperty loss."

As part of their overall risk management plan, Fallon recommendschild care centers develop and maintain a disaster recovery plan,including the use of temporary facilities to try and maintainbusiness operations if necessary.

Liability and lawsuits
Understanding thefrequency of liability incidents and lawsuits is an importantcomponent in managing the insurance and loss control program. Thetop child care losses based on frequency and lawsuit allegationsare falls, slip and fall/trip and fall, sexual and physical abuseand bumping by other children.

Prevention begins with designing and furnishing centers topromote supervision and safety, taking special care with windows,doors, stoves/microwaves and electrical sockets and cords.Furnishings should be stable with few moving parts and largeopenings to avoid entrapments.

Designing safe play areas
Facilities mustcomply with state and federal regulations to obtain and retainlicensure following jurisdiction-specific statutes and regulatorysurvey requirements. Playgrounds should be designed and equipped tomatch children's ages and abilities. Centers should also:

• Ensure outdoor play areas are accessible, close to phones anddrinking water.
• Use fences, gates and natural barriers to prevent wandering andkeep out intruders.
• Ensure proper drainage to eliminate standing water.
• Locate moving playground equipment like swings away fromwalking paths to avoid collisions.
• Separate children of different ages and abilities.

Transportation guidelines
Whether childcare centers transport children daily or occasionally, there arekey guidelines for transporting children safely:

• Never leave children unattended in a vehicle.
• Maintain appropriate staff to child ratios on all trips.
• Ensure vehicle drivers are licensed and conduct yearly DMVchecks.
• Train drivers to transport young children, including those withdisabilities.
• Ensure the proper utilization of child passenger restraintsystems.
• Remove responsibility for passenger supervision from thedriver.
• Train drivers to drive defensively and handle emergencysituations.
• Ensure vehicles are properly maintained and repaired.
• Equip vehicles with first aid kits and fire extinguishers.
• Teach children how to safely enter and exit the vehicles.
• Adopt a strict policy to account for each child when they enterand exit vehicles.
• Ensure an adult escorts children when they cross traffic.

Selecting and training the staff
Selectingstaff, substitutes and volunteers requires a comprehensive hiringand training system.. Safety policies must be concise, clear,written and enforceable. They must describe the center's rulesregarding health, safety, hiring, supervision, training,transportation and emergency planning.

Hiring practices should include authorized criminal, credit andmotor vehicle background checks. Written job descriptions mustclearly address health and safety issues. New hires should undergoprogram orientation, including a review of policies and regularin-service staff development.

Keeping clear, accurate, confidential health and safety recordsis an essential component of a child care operator'sresponsibilities. Only authorized personnel should have access tothese records. Records of child allergies and medicationadministration and authorization forms should be a part of thisrecord keeping. A center also must maintain emergency phonecontacts close at hand, and use injury report forms to keep recordsof incidents.

As a trusted insurance professional, agents can work with theirinsurers and child-care center customers to provide coverage forthese exposures and provide loss control to minimize risk.