A public school run by a nonprofit board, with an authorizer that can close it.
Insurance for charter schools — the limits your authorizer’s agreement sets, board coverage for a governing body that answers to a district, abuse and molestation for a campus full of children, and the question of whether a commercial policy or a pooled program is the better buy.
Tell us the situation.
One licensed human replies the same business day — not five agents, not an auto-responder. If the policy you have is already the right one, we will tell you.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
What charter school businesses actually need.
General liability
Students, parents and the public on campus, athletics and field trips, and the additional insured wording your authorizer and landlord require.
Without it — The first line of every charter agreement’s insurance section, and the one the authorizer checks annually.
Abuse and molestation
Allegations involving students — the exposure that comes with several hundred children and the adults who supervise them.
Without it — Excluded from general liability, and the claim that has closed charter schools.
Directors and officers, with employment practices
Claims against the governing board over hiring, dismissals, enrollment decisions, special-education disputes and the finances your authorizer audits.
Without it — A charter board is sued more like a public agency than a nonprofit, and its members serve without pay.
Educators professional liability
Teaching, counseling, discipline and special-education decisions — harm alleged from the education itself.
Without it — A special-education dispute is the commonest professional claim a school faces, and general liability does not answer it.
Workers compensation
Teachers, aides, coaches and custodians — with a public-school workforce’s injury profile and, in many states, its own comp rules for schools.
Without it — A charter is usually the employer of record even when the district is the authorizer.
Property
The campus if you own it, your improvements and contents if you lease, and the technology in every classroom.
Without it — Most charters lease, and the lease shifts the property risk onto the tenant in ways a district-owned school never sees.
Business cyber
Student records, staff data and the payment systems a school runs — with the notification duties of a public agency.
Without it — Schools are among the most-attacked organizations in the country, and a charter has no district IT department behind it.
The nonprofit liability package
General, professional, abuse and molestation and board coverage on one policy from a carrier that names charter schools as a class it wants.
Without it — The pieces bought separately cost more and leave gaps at the seams — particularly between educators liability and D&O.
The claims we actually see.
Ordered by how often we see them, not by how dramatic they are. Each one names the coverage that answers it — and the policy people wrongly assume already does.
Most common
A special-education dispute
Covered by Educators professional liability, and D&O for the board’s decisions
The commonest claim a school faces. It is a professional claim about the services the student was owed, so general liability is silent — and a charter, unlike a district school, cannot lean on a county office to defend it.
Most common
A student is injured at recess, in PE or on a field trip
Covered by General liability, with participant accident paying the medical bills first where it is carried
Routine, and the reason participant accident coverage exists — a paid emergency-room bill rarely becomes a lawsuit. Field trips add the transport question, which is an auto claim, not a premises one.
Common
A staff member sues the board
Covered by Directors and officers, and employment practices
Employment disputes are the commonest D&O claim a nonprofit board sees, and a charter board makes more hiring and dismissal decisions than most. Members serve unpaid and are named personally.
Common
A data breach of student records
Covered by Business cyber
A charter is a public agency for notification purposes with a private organization’s IT budget. The breach itself is cheap next to the notification and the credit monitoring for every family.
Rare, catastrophic
An abuse allegation
Covered by Abuse and molestation
Excluded from general liability, written claims-made, and the claim an authorizer cites when it revokes a charter. Screening, supervision and reporting procedures are what the underwriter reads before setting the limit.
What our charter school clients ask us.
Which carriers write charter schools, and can we go to them directly?
Philadelphia Insurance Companies — PHLY, part of Tokio Marine, rated A++ by AM Best — is the carrier that has told us in writing it wants charter schools, alongside private K-12 schools and academic colleges, and it is where most of our human-services submissions go first. PHLY does not sell to organizations directly: it works only through appointed agents, and we hold that appointment, so your file reaches their underwriter with our name on it rather than through a second intermediary. What their underwriter wants to see is specific and we assemble it before anything is sent — their supplemental application for your class, the standard applications, three years of valued loss runs (a report from each prior insurer showing every claim and its reserve), photographs of the premises, and your brochure or website. Payment plans are available once the annual price reaches $2,000. None of that is a promise to bind — every quote is subject to their underwriting review — but a complete file is the difference between a quote and a list of questions.
Our authorizer requires $3M/$6M abuse and molestation. Can a commercial policy do that?
Read the number carefully, because it decides your price. PHLY’s primary abuse and molestation limit is $1,000,000 per occurrence with a $1,000,000, $2,000,000 or — on occasion — $3,000,000 aggregate. Anything above that has to come from an umbrella, and their umbrella capacity is smaller in Los Angeles County than elsewhere, needs every control in place (screening, supervision, training, reporting) and is decided case by case. So a funder or landlord asking for $3,000,000 per occurrence and $6,000,000 aggregate is not asking for a bigger policy; they are asking for a tower — a primary plus one or more excess layers — and excess abuse coverage runs roughly $15,000 per $1,000,000 of limit, often more than the underlying policy itself. Before you buy that, let us read the requirement. Many are boilerplate copied from a construction contract, and a sourced request to the funder explaining what the market actually offers gets them reduced more often than people expect. We quote the primary first, and build the tower only when the requirement genuinely will not move.
Stand-alone abuse and molestation: when it is the right route, and what it costs
Should we insure through a pool or buy a commercial policy?
Get both numbers, because the answer changes with the school. In California and several other states, charter schools can join a joint powers authority — a pool of schools that self-insures together and buys reinsurance above it. Pools are good at the routine: stable pricing, coverage written for schools, and a membership that understands charter governance. A commercial policy competes on three things — the abuse and molestation limit and how it is written, the breadth of the D&O and employment practices form, and price for a school with a clean history and a strong enrollment. A school that has been in a pool for years and never seen a commercial quote does not know what it is paying for; we quote the commercial market against the pool’s renewal and tell you which is better, including when it is the pool.
What does the charter agreement actually require, and who checks it?
The agreement or the memorandum of understanding with your authorizer sets the limits — commonly $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate on general liability, workers compensation as required by law, and increasingly a named abuse and molestation limit — and requires the authorizer to be named as additional insured, with a certificate delivered before each school year. The authorizer checks it at renewal and at every material change, and a lapse is a compliance finding that goes in the file used at renewal of the charter itself. Send us the agreement with the application: those limits, not a generic list, are the ones you have to meet.
Does a charter school need D&O when it is a public school?
More than a private nonprofit does, because its board makes public-agency decisions with nonprofit resources. A charter board decides admissions and lotteries, discipline and expulsion, special-education placements, hiring and dismissal, and the budget its authorizer audits — and each of those is a decision someone can sue over, naming the members personally. Directors and officers coverage with employment practices liability is the policy that defends them. Most charter boards serve unpaid, and the people worth recruiting will ask whether this coverage is in place before they accept.
How does a charter school differ from a private school for insurance?
A private school is a business with children in it; a charter is a public agency without a district behind it. The private school sets its own enrollment, tuition and rules and answers to its board. The charter answers to an authorizer that sets insurance requirements, audits its finances, and can revoke the charter — and its students are public-school students with public-school rights, which drives the special-education and civil-rights side of the professional and D&O claims. The coverages are the same on paper; the underwriting and the claims are not.
Commercial insurance is 96% of what we do — it is not a department here, it is the whole business. Not ready to talk? The guides answer the questions this page raises in more depth. Already insured with us and need a certificate or a policy change? Ask the service team rather than starting a quote — it is faster and it goes to the people whose job it is. We also write home and auto, which is usually cheaper alongside the business policy than apart from it.