Adoption and Foster Care
An affinity for people who create families.
Your social workers, counselors and healthcare professionals create families. They bring joy to parents and provide homes for orphans.
In the course of their duties there are victories and there are defeats.
Should an unhappy parent and their attorneys file suit, you are going to become very conscious of just what your professional liability insurance is worth. Just what will it pay — and exclude?
This is where Affinity Healthcare’s malpractice coverage can work miracles. It’s at the point of a claim you’ll discover the value of having a specialty broker who has tailor made your policy for an Adoption/Foster Care business.
For example, some professional liability policies deduct the cost for legal expenses from your policy limits. The attorney fees erode your protection.
With your Adoption/Foster Care policy your coverage for legal expenses are paid ‘outside’ the policy limits. Meaning you get unlimited coverage for things like attorney’s fees.
Average cost of a lawsuit today? $425,000.
Approximately 513,000 children nationally were in foster care on the last day of 2005. During that year, 311,000 children entered foster care and 285,000 children exited foster care, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Considering the number of children that go through the foster care system and ultimately end up in adoptive families, the number of lawsuits is fairly low. But when they do occur, they can be costly.
Perhaps you read about the $12 million settlement in Illinois against a foster care service for failure to monitor the care of three children they had placed into a foster home that were subsequently neglected and abused. Or the Boston couple who sued an adoption agency claiming they were duped into adopting disabled twins — and were awarded $409,000.
Numerous meritless cases are thrown out of court. However even when you win, it can still cost a minimum of $25,000 in legal fees to defend yourself. Legal fees in liability claims average $95,000. And if a jury decides against you, awards today average $425,000.
Win or lose, with Affinity Healthcare’s professional liability plan for Adoption and Foster Care business, your policy pays for all of your legal expenses on top of your coverage limits — even if the claim has no merit.
Coverage Highlights
Professional Liability (Malpractice) Insurance
- Occurrence or Claims-made forms*
- Up to $5,000,000/$5,000,000 limits available
- Legal defense costs paid over and above policy limits
- Sexual abuse and molestation covered up to $3,000,000 limits
- Employees and volunteers included as named insureds
- Individuals or entities protected:
- Owner and/or Entity(ies)
- Subsidiaries – Insured’s interest 51% or greater
- Employees and volunteers included as insureds
- Coverage available for the following professionals:
- Psychologists
- Counselors
- Nurses
- Social workers
- Coverage for psychiatrists, nurse practitioners and other medical doctors may be available
General Liability Insurance
- Occurrence or Claims-made
- Up to $5,000,000/$5,000,000 limits available
- No deductible or options as low as $1,000
- Contractual Liability
- $100,000 Fire Legal Liability
- Employee Benefits Liability (Claims-made only)
- Employers Hired and Non-owned Auto
- Up to $1,000,000 combined single limit per accident available
Property
- Electronic Data Processing
- Miscellaneous articles
- Accounts receivable
- Valuable papers
Crime
- Employee Theft
- Forgery or alteration
- Inside premises theft of money and securities
- Outside the premises theft
- Inside premises robbery (burglary)
Application Underwriting Guidelines
To complete the underwriting process, you will need to provide the following:
- Brochure, advertising materials and/or web site
- Loss history
- Owner's resume
- Previous insurer declaration page if requesting claims made coverage
- Copy of current facility license
*Professional liability occurrence coverage may not be available for all accounts
