What insurance does a home care agency need if it also runs assisted living?

Facility professional liability is written against a schedule of locations and a definition of professional services that ties the covered activity to care rendered at a licensed facility. Care delivered in a client home is neither at the scheduled location nor, on many forms, within the defined service.

The result is a clean gap rather than an ambiguous one. It is also a gap that grows quietly, because home care lines are often started as a small adjunct to fill census gaps and are not raised with the broker until a claim or an audit surfaces the payroll.

Supervision is remote. Nobody else is present to observe the caregiver or the client, which changes both the risk profile and the evidentiary position when an allegation arises. Allegations of theft, financial exploitation and abuse are more common per hour of care in the home setting for that reason.

The property is not yours. Damage to the client home, and injury to family members and pets, is a general liability exposure at a location you do not control and cannot inspect.

Transport is central. Caregivers drive their own vehicles between clients and often drive clients to appointments. Non-owned and hired auto liability is the coverage for that, and hiring standards including motor vehicle record checks are what underwriting will ask about.

Professional liability written for home care with the service definition matching your license and scope, whether that is companion and homemaker services, personal care, or skilled home health, since the three price very differently.

General liability including care custody and control considerations for the client property. Abuse and molestation with a sublimit sized for the higher allegation rate in this setting. Employee dishonesty or a fidelity bond covering theft from clients, which many home care contracts and some state licenses require by name.

Non-owned and hired auto. Workers compensation with the correct class code, noting that travel between clients is generally compensable while the ordinary commute is not, and that misclassification here is a common audit finding.

Decide whether the home care line sits in the same legal entity as the facility. Keeping it separate makes the insurance cleaner and limits the reach of a home care claim into the facility balance sheet, but it also means two programs, two retentions and two sets of certificates.

Most operators of any scale separate the entities and then arrange common ownership of the insurance program so that the two policies share a broker, a renewal date and a claims philosophy without sharing a limit.