Insurance for Schools
Learn your insurance options. Teach with peace of mind.
Learn your insurance options. Teach with peace of mind.
Employee-owned and customer inspired, we hold ourselves accountable to you and your organization.
Whether you’re a private or public school, our prices are competitive, our fees are clear and our deep industry relationships allow us to go above and beyond while staying grounded in our values.
Always there to prove and move your school forward, our approach to finding risk management solutions is more individual and less institutional.
We start with listening and end with customized insurance and loss prevention solutions built around your needs.
By committing to transparency while demonstrating authenticity, we’re a place that leads with values so value leads.
To learn more about how our values-based approach creates value for you and your business, click here.
Or visit our Insights page to learn more about essential educational institution insurance coverages.
It’s a big assignment with a lot of homework to design an insurance plan that addresses the broad spectrum of risks faced by your educational institution. Higginbotham is here to bring clarity to your options and help you make an informed decision on the coverage you need.
Our deep industry experience and strong insurance carrier relationships help us accomplish more.
But we don’t stop there.
We deliver year-round value with our Day Two Services® that support your risk management efforts throughout the term of your insurance policy.
Our tailored approach to education insurance is designed to give you the peace of mind you deserve.
We are in the business of providing service to, and being a resource for, our clients – so when we find a company that stands out in terms of service, we not only use those services in our firm, but also recommend those resources to clients and friends. Higginbotham stands out in all of those areas.
While the insurance needs of educational institutions and school districts vary depending on several factors, here are some of the more common school insurance coverages.
Also commonly known as “school board legal liability insurance,” this policy can cover legal costs stemming from lawsuits alleging wrongful termination, improper dismissal, negligent counseling and failure to grant tenure.
Directors and officers coverage is designed around the risks involved with serving as a director or officer of a business, nonprofit or other organization. Like school and educator liability, D&O insurance can help safeguard the assets of directors and officers from a lawsuit and assist the organization they work for with legal costs incurred as a result of a lawsuit.
If your school rents buses or other vehicles to transport students to field trips or school events, hired auto is a smart coverage to consider. Because personal and commercial auto policies typically only cover vehicles owned by an individual or entity, hired and non-owned coverage is crucial for organizations using rental vehicles.
From the locker rooms in your gym to the kitchen in your cafeteria, your school likely has a complicated drainage system. When one of these drains backs up, it can quickly become a health hazard. Adding that the cost to fix a drain issue can get prohibitive quickly, sewer and drain insurance is an essential coverage to consider including in your policy.
Capable of helping you with cleanup and repair costs in the aftermath of a drain or sewer issue, this coverage can help get you back on track without undue difficulty or expense.
If you rent your buildings or other property, you should consider carrying tenant legal liability insurance. Designed to help cover costs if you’re at fault for damage to your landlord’s property, this coverage can help mitigate risks related to vandalism, absent-mindedness and more.
Professional liability, or “errors and omissions” (E&O) insurance, is an essential coverage for any professional, including educators, to have. Designed to protect you from legal damages resulting from mistakes and negligence in rendering opinions or consulting, E&O can help protect educators and school administrators against a wide range of financial risks related to performing their jobs.
Employee benefits liability can help with costs incurred from improperly administering employee benefits. In the event that your school faces a lawsuit alleging an error or omission in the employee benefits program, this coverage can help with ensuing legal defense costs, judgments and settlements.
State law requires most employers to compensate employees or their families for lost wages and medical care due to job-related injuries resulting from accidents or occupational disease. Workers’ compensation insurance is designed to help with those costs.
Student accident insurance can help mitigate the financial risks created by field trips, special events and other school-sponsored activities. Picking up where general liability coverage ends, student accident coverage can cover the cost of a lawsuit or settlement resulting from covered student injuries and fatalities off-site.
If your educational institution organizes community gatherings, fundraisers or other public events, your general liability insurance may fall short of covering your liability. With this in mind, special events coverage can help with the costs of property damage or injuries sustained at events you host.
In some cases, this coverage can even include protection for lost deposits if you need to cancel.
Considering all the crucial protections most public and private schools need to carry, it’s often wise to consider bundling coverages into a business owners policy (BOP) or commercial package policy (CPP). These package policies can protect a school much in the same way a homeowners’ policy protects a house, often saving you money on your premiums in the process.
While the coverages included in each CPP vary based on your needs and risk exposure, here are a few essential options:
While general liability (GL) coverage is essential for all businesses to carry, it is especially crucial for schools. This business insurance can help with the costs of lawsuits alleging injuries or property damage sustained as a result of your operation. Considering the countless ways things can go wrong, general liability insurance is a wise investment to explore.
This coverage is designed around the risk of damage to the physical buildings on your campus and the valuable assets they protect. Should your facility or school supplies suffer damage or loss, commercial property insurance can help with the cost of repairing or replacing them.
Also known as “business interruption insurance,” this coverage can protect your educational institution against an unexpected loss of income. For example, should you experience a fire at your school, your business income insurance could help cover lost wages and other overhead costs, including rent payments for a temporary location while you rebuild or recover.
Reports of sexual misconduct and physical abuse in educational institutions have become more prevalent in in recent years. With this in mind, sexual misconduct and physical abuse coverage is wise to include in your educational insurance policy.
Designed to help with legal fees and other costs incurred due to allegations of sexual or physical abuse, this coverage should be top-of-mind for school administrators reviewing insurance options.
Sexual abuse is a highly regulated risk that Higginbotham can help you navigate with compliance and prevention services.
If you conduct a licensed youth camp, the Texas Youth Camp Safety Act requires adult staff members to complete an abuse prevention training and examination program. To help you fulfill your many reporting obligations, we assist with abuse awareness training, policies and procedures, background checks, screening training and systems for monitoring and oversight.
We also review your contracts to make sure that you have appropriate abuse prevention terms for subcontractors and service vendors working on your campus.
To help ensure your property insurance policies have accurate replacement cost values that reflect current market conditions, Higginbotham can provide property profiles of your entire campus, showing building composition, size, structure, safety features and photographs. This helps you avoid being underinsured, causing you to pay out-of-pocket for a catastrophic loss exceeding replacement cost value, or over-insured, causing you to pay higher rates.
A great plan starts with a conversation. Let’s talk about what you need.