The school district will ask for two things your malpractice policy does not have.
We insure speech-language pathology practices that contract with school districts and regional centers, abuse and molestation and hired and non-owned auto included.
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.
Send us what you have. We’ll tell you if it’s right.
Your current policy paperwork, a renewal notice, or nothing at all. A licensed agent reads it and replies the same business day.
What speech-language pathology businesses actually need.
Sexual abuse & molestation
Covers allegations of abuse by staff or volunteers. General liability usually excludes it outright, and any organization working with children, patients or vulnerable adults will be asked to carry it by name.
Without it — Districts require it by name from vendors with direct or virtual student contact, and general liability excludes it.
Hired & non-owned auto
Covers vehicles the business does not own but its people drive on the job: rentals, and employees running errands in their own cars. Their personal auto policy will not cover a business trip, and the claim lands on the business. Pricing depends entirely on HOW it is bought: as an endorsement on a general liability policy we write, HNOA often costs a few hundred dollars; as a stand-alone (monoline) policy it runs $2,500 to $5,000, and association practitioner programs (CPH, CM&F and similar) generally cannot take the endorsement, so "add HNOA to my existing policy for $300-$800" is usually not a real option. A package carrying GL, professional liability and HNOA together is typically cheaper than the monoline.
Without it — Therapists driving their own cars between campuses and homes are on business use their personal insurer did not agree to.
Professional liability
Covers the advice, the drawing, the diagnosis. The work itself, rather than someone getting hurt on your premises.
Without it — Assessment and treatment decisions are professional exposures, and the licensing expectation is that you carry it.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage. It is the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — The limit the district contract names, before you can be approved as a vendor.
Workers compensation
Required in almost every state the moment you have employees. Priced on payroll and class code, which is why the class code is worth arguing about.
Without it — Required once you have an employee, and verified by most districts.
Cyber & tech E&O
Breach response, ransomware and the notification costs that follow. Technology errors and omissions sits on the same policy and covers the software or service itself failing a client, which is the half most tech companies find out about too late.
Without it — Evaluations and treatment notes on children are health records with notification duties attached.
Kevin Kelsey
Founder | Principal Agent
Owned and ran a home health agency before insurance, which is where the allied health exposures were learned first-hand rather than from a rate manual: the vendor packets, the abuse and molestation requirement, staff driving their own cars to clients, and the he-said/she-said nature of a claim arising from one-to-one direct care where nobody else was in the room.
A speech therapist took on work with Los Angeles Unified and was sent the district’s insurance requirements. Their practitioner policy carried professional liability and nothing else.
We placed sexual abuse and molestation and hired and non-owned auto to the district’s limits. Districts require abuse coverage from anyone with direct or virtual contact with students, and hired and non-owned auto because therapists drive their own cars between campuses. Neither comes with an individual malpractice policy.
What the insurance company will ask about your speech-language pathology business
We read 1 application the markets use for this kind of business and pulled out what they actually ask. Have these answers ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week, because nobody has to come back to you for the missing piece.
About the business
- What type of therapy or training services do you provide?
- Do you own or operate a facility where you provide these services?
How you operate
- Do you work under a physician's direction, or do clients come to you on their own?
- What percentage of your work is with people under age 18?
- What percentage of your work is in nursing homes or hospitals?
- Do you work with any celebrities, professional athletes, or other high-profile clients, and if so, what percentage of your business is that?
Safety and controls
- Do you have written policies for keeping patient records private and sharing information with other healthcare providers?
- Do you have written policies for checking the quality of care you provide, managing risks, and preventing infections?
- If you have a facility, are safety inspections done regularly?
- Do you get signed consent and liability waivers from all patients or their parents or guardians?
Services you offer
- Do any of your staff do blood tests or stress tests?
- Do you treat wounds or burns?
- Do you work with children under age three?
- If you provide occupational therapy, do you do driver rehabilitation?
- If you provide occupational therapy, do you require a doctor's approval before clients return to work?
Your history
- Do you have any claims or incidents from previous years?
Have these ready
- Your current or most recent insurance policy paperwork
- Your claims history from your current insurer for the last five years
- Your payroll records for the past year
- Your business revenue records for the past year
You answer what you can; a licensed agent fills the rest with you.
What our speech-language pathology clients ask us.
What does a school district require from a speech therapist?
Beyond professional liability, expect general liability at a specified limit, abuse and molestation with its own limit for anyone in direct or virtual contact with students, workers compensation where you have staff, and auto coverage covering the driving between sites. Districts also commonly require the district to be named as an additional insured and to be given notice before the policy is cancelled or reduced. Send the packet and we will read it against the policy rather than guess at it.
Does teletherapy remove the abuse exposure?
No, and districts have written their requirements to say so. Virtual contact with students is treated the same as in-person for the purposes of abuse coverage. A practice that moved online and assumed the requirement went away is a common gap.
Is this different from ASHA’s recommended coverage?
It sits alongside it. A practitioner policy answers the clinical question and is what a licensing body has in mind. A contract with a district or a regional center is asking about the business — its premises, its vehicles, its employees and its abuse exposure. Practices are usually well covered on the first and uncovered on the second.
What does a speech-language pathology insurance application ask for?
The applications for speech-language pathology businesses ask about 4 things above all: what type of therapy or training services do you provide; do you work under a physician's direction, or do clients come to you on their own; do you have written policies for keeping patient records private and sharing information with other healthcare providers; do any of your staff do blood tests or stress tests. Have your current or most recent insurance policy paperwork and your claims history from your current insurer for the last five years ready and a quote takes a day instead of a week.
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.
Handed a lease, a vendor packet or a client contract with insurance requirements? Paste it into the COI Requirements Decoder to see what each one means for your business, or read what the requirements mean.