Top Tips for Renewing your Care Business Insurance

• Establish a relationship with your broker. You should be able to phone a dedicated person who you can discuss all insurance matters with. This person is responsible for managing your insurance arrangements and it’s important that they fully understand you and your business.
• If you don’t speak to your broker regularly, Towergate Insurance suggest talking to them 90 days in advance of your renewal date, which is a good practice to undertake each year. Talk to them about what is happening in your business such as changes to service users, income, etc so that they are able to obtain the renewal quotation on the correct basis.
• Make sure that you understand what sort of additional information insurers may require from you, particularly in a shrinking market. For example, they may ask that you submit an infection control questionnaire, provide CQC actions plans or details of the number of recent COVID-19 deaths.
• If your current policy is with an insurer that is not offering renewal terms, you should be prepared to provide additional information to your broker for them to obtain an alternative quote from the insurers that are still writing new business
• Read your insurance policy wording; you may often find that there are extra benefits included, such as a legal expenses, stress helplines, etc.
• Understand what is covered within your policy; for example what is your ‘business description’ defined as? You could find that this definition may not match up with the service you are preparing, meaning you may not be covered.
• Make sure that your policies and procedures are robust in terms of being able to defend a potential claim; insurers will always expect that you are acting with reasonable care. Can you fully demonstrate that you have undertaken necessary risk assessments, staff training, care plans etc and that this is all suitably documented?
• Report significant incidents when they happen. Reaching out to your broker to let them know of an incident is NOT you admitting wrongdoing and does not start the process of a claim. It means that if any claim is made in the future, your broker is aware of what happened.
• Insurers expect that providers are following the guidance around COVID-19 and vaccinations etc, so will want to understand your processes. Make sure you have a record of these.
• If a member of staff refuses to get the vaccine, it will not affect your insurance cover, but it may be worth putting a clause in when hiring new staff members, so that they have to have been vaccinated.

Care business insurance from Towergate

Towergate Insurance are partners with Care England, NCF, Homecare Association and a number of regional associations, and are actively engaging with local Government officers to provide updates on market restrictions. We also work closely with the British Insurance Brokers Association and the Association of British Insurers, to ensure that wider messages are being heard across the market.

To find out more, visit our care insurance webpages, call us on 01438 739280 or email newcare@towergate.co.uk.

About the author

Carolyn Baker-Mellor is a respected industry leader with over 35 years' experience within the care insurance sector. She works across a wide spectrum of insurance product and policy development, delivery and optimisation for care industry clients, including managing global corporate accounts, working closely with trade associations, and helping clients in protecting their businesses and personal assets. Her areas of expertise within the sector include care homes, nurseries, domiciliary care, hospices and charities.

Carolyn currently works at Towergate as Head of Care Insurance. Towergate is the UK’s leading independent insurance broking platform and forms part of the Ardonagh Group, an international network of over 100 offices and 7,000 people which incorporates leading brands in both Lloyd’s of London and global markets.

She previously worked for 10 years at Aon as a director, client services leader and assistant director for claims.