Domiciliary care insurance for agencies

Who needs domiciliary care insurance?

If you’re running a domiciliary care agency, supplying carers to clients’ private homes, you’ll need suitable insurance for in-home care providers.

To be registered as a domiciliary care service, you need to be approved by the CQC (Care Quality Commission) or Care Inspectorate (Scotland and Wales). And to be approved by any of these governing bodies, you’ll need to have a certain level of insurance cover in place.

So it’s imperative you have it.

Our domiciliary care insurance can also cover you if you run a healthcare or nursing agency.

It’s worth noting that if you run a care home or you’re a self-employed carer, you’ll need a different type of insurance.

What does domiciliary insurance cover?

You can tailor your domiciliary insurance cover to suit your needs. But these three main areas are covered as standard:

Professional indemnity. If a client or a potential recruit thinks your agency has acted negligently and makes a claim, professional indemnity insurance protects you. Say you accidentally send a candidate’s CV to their current employer. Or you don’t send a carer round to a patient when you’d agreed to, and they have to find a stand-in.

Those on the receiving end of your error could be badly affected, out of pocket, and want compensating. Professional indemnity will pay your legal fees and cover any compensation you owe.

Public liability insurance is there to back you up in the event of an accident or unfortunate mishap. It pays legal costs and compensation for injury to a third person or damage to their property.

For example, if a patient trips over your employee’s first aid kit and breaks a hip. Or you accidentally spill your coffee over a candidate’s phone during an interview.

You’ll also have cover for the administration of drugs. So, if an employee accidentally gives a client the wrong dose or the wrong thing altogether, and it has an adverse effect, you’ll be given help to defend yourself against a claim.

Employers’ liability is a legal requirement for any company with employees. If anyone working for the agency becomes ill or injured, and says it’s your fault, employers’ liability has you covered.

Another benefit to this domiciliary care agency insurance is cover for supervision and direction. If you run the agency in all respects, and give guidance and advice to your agency staff, it’s important you cover your own back. Because a wrong instruction or misadvice could cost your client, employee and you.

This policy can be extended to give vicarious cover. In case you aren’t sure, that means all staff you place through your agency are covered by your insurance in the same way as you and your employees are. Even temporary staff.

How much does domiciliary care insurance cost?

That depends on a few things – the number of people you recruit, the kind of work they do, and what types of cover you choose to take out.

As it’s a condition of the CQC to have public liability and employers’ liability insurance at the very least, it’s a cost you’re going to have to factor into your business.

The more staff you have, the more cover you have, the higher the risk to your insurer, and the higher your premium will be. But that’s only common sense.

What other types of insurance do domiciliary care providers need?

We’re guessing you store a lot of sensitive information about your staff, clients, and contracts on computers. Yes? Then you really need cyber insurance.

Cyber insurance covers you in the event of a cyber-attack or data breach. It’ll get you back on your feet, with help from IT experts to recover your systems, and legal experts to defend your reputation.

You might also want to consider directors’ and officers’ insurance (D&O). If anyone accuses the people running your organisation of handling business badly and decides to sue, D&O is there to protect them and their personal assets.

Say an employee you place doesn’t have the right qualifications and ends up injuring a patient. If the care home then sues the agency owner personally for failing to supply qualified staff, D&O picks up legal costs and compensation.

You can also add employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) to your D&O policy. If a member of staff makes a complaint about your conduct or mismanagement, EPLI takes care of it.

Why choose us?

Business insurance is our bread and butter. It’s what we do, day in, day out.

We’ve ‘advised sales’ status from the FCA. Which means we’re approved to give insurance advice that’s tailored to your needs.

You can get a quote, buy a policy, and receive your documents without ever needing to pick up the phone. But our team of expert advisers are here, if you need a helping hand.

Still not convinced? Check out our customers’ reviews on Feefo. They’ll tell you everything you need to know about us.