Six beds, twenty-four hours, and a license that can be pulled over one incident.
Insurance for group homes serving developmentally and intellectually disabled adults, children’s homes and short-term residential programs — the abuse and molestation limit your funder requires, the professional liability for care decisions, and the property cover for a house that is also a workplace.
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 group home businesses actually need.
Abuse and molestation
Allegations involving residents in your care — the coverage a regional center, county or licensing body asks for by name.
Without it — Excluded from general liability outright, and the one claim that closes a home rather than costing it money.
Professional liability
Care planning, medication administration, supervision decisions and behavioral supports — harm caused by the service itself.
Without it — A resident who wanders, chokes or is injured by another resident is a professional claim, not a slip-and-fall.
General liability
Injury to visitors, family members and contractors on the premises, and damage you cause to others.
Without it — Every funding contract requires it, and it is where the additional insured wording lives.
Property
The house if you own it, the contents and improvements if you lease, and the income lost while a damaged home is empty.
Without it — A homeowners policy will not cover a building operated as a licensed facility, whatever the mortgage company was told.
Workers compensation
Direct support staff, awake overnight staff and administrators — lifting, transfers and resident aggression included.
Without it — Injury from resident behavior is a rated, expected exposure in this class, not an anomaly.
Commercial auto
The van that takes residents to day programs, appointments and outings, plus staff driving their own cars for the home.
Without it — Transporting residents is the highest-severity thing a group home does every day.
The nonprofit liability package
For nonprofit operators: general liability, professional liability, abuse and molestation and board coverage on one policy, with volunteers covered as insureds.
Without it — Bought separately, the same four coverages cost more and leave gaps at the seams between them.
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 resident is injured by another resident
Covered by Professional liability, with general liability arguing about it
Families assume the home is liable the way a landlord is. It is liable the way a caregiver is — for the supervision plan, the staffing ratio and what the incident report says was done. General liability alone usually will not answer it.
Most common
A staff member is hurt during a transfer or by a resident
Covered by Workers compensation
Lifting injuries and injuries from resident behavior are the two commonest workers compensation claims in the class, and both are what the rate already assumes. Under-reporting payroll to lower the price is discovered at audit.
Common
A medication error
Covered by Professional liability
Direct support staff administer medication under a physician’s order in most states, and a wrong dose or missed dose is a professional claim against the home. It is not covered by general liability and the licensing consequence runs alongside the lawsuit.
Less common, severe
An abuse or neglect allegation
Covered by Abuse and molestation
Excluded from general liability, usually written claims-made, and frequently reported years after the fact. A lapse between policies or a reset retroactive date can leave the whole history uninsured — which is why a change of carrier in this class is done carefully.
Rare, catastrophic
A fire in a licensed home
Covered by Property and business income
The building is the smaller loss. Six residents have to be placed elsewhere the same night, the license attaches to the address, and the funding stops until the home reopens. Business income cover is what pays staff while that happens.
What our group home clients ask us.
Who actually writes group home insurance, 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 group homes serving intellectually and developmentally disabled clients, and children’s homes, 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 regional center requires $1M abuse and molestation. Another contract asks for $3M/$6M. What is realistic?
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
We are being vendored by a California regional center. What do they check?
A regional center vendors the operator, not the house, and it checks the insurance the way it checks the license — against a list. Expect general liability, abuse and molestation and, where you drive consumers, auto coverage, with the regional center named as additional insured and a certificate that matches the vendor application exactly. A new operator brings no claims history, so the underwriter reads the founders instead: experience with the population, credentials, any program previously run. Have that written up before the application goes in, because it is the first thing both the regional center and the carrier will ask.
Is a group home the same as assisted living for insurance purposes?
No, and the difference decides which carriers will look at you. A group home for developmentally or intellectually disabled adults — in California an Adult Residential Facility — is a target class for the human-services carriers, PHLY included, on the full package. An assisted living facility or nursing home serving the elderly is a different underwriting class: PHLY, for example, will write the property and the vehicles for one but not the liability. If your home is licensed for elderly residents, say so at the start so we quote the right market rather than discovering it after the application is in.
We are a short-term residential program for children. Does the same policy work?
The same structure, underwritten harder. A children’s home or short-term residential therapeutic program carries every exposure of an adult group home plus minors, court placements, and — in most programs — clinical services delivered on site. The abuse and molestation section becomes the whole conversation: the underwriter will want to read your screening, supervision and incident-reporting procedures rather than take a yes on the application, and the limit the placing agency requires is usually higher than a regional center asks of an adult home. PHLY lists children’s homes as a class it wants. Adoption and foster-care agencies are different — most human-services carriers will write property and auto for one but not the liability, and the liability market for foster care is a separate, smaller conversation.
Our staff use their own cars to take residents to appointments. Is that covered?
Not by the driver’s personal policy in any way you would want to rely on, and not by your general liability at all. Hired and non-owned auto liability is what answers for the home when a staff member driving their own car on the home’s business injures someone — it sits above the driver’s own policy, which is why carriers require annual driving-record checks and proof that each driver keeps a personal policy in force. If the home owns a van, that is a commercial auto policy, and the underwriter will ask how many residents it carries and whether it is wheelchair-equipped.
Also in this family
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.