Ask Ralph
Every week Ralph Schiller takes one question he hears from clients and answers it on camera in under two minutes. The videos go out as YouTube Shorts and live here, with the answer written out underneath so you can read it, check the figures and follow the links.
Ralph has placed healthcare, senior living and social services coverage for a long time, and the same dozen questions keep coming up at renewal. This is where they get a straight answer. Subscribe on YouTube to get each episode as it lands.
Is abuse coverage already included in my general liability policy?
Ralph's answer
Probably, and that's exactly the problem. Most general liability policies handle abuse and molestation one of two ways. They exclude it completely, or they add it back as an endorsement, with a sublimit. And that sublimit is commonly $25,000.
A standalone abuse and molestation policy typically provides $1 million per victim. That's 40 times as much, actually there to protect you.
And here's the number that matters. Defending one of these claims typically runs $150,000 to $500,000, even when the allegation is false. $25,000 doesn't survive the first month. It's also usually less than your own contracts require. Licensing bodies and the organizations you work with increasingly want $1 million, $3 million, dedicated.
So here's what to do today. Pull out your declarations page. Find the words "abuse" or "molestation" and read the number next to them. If what you find is a sublimit, you don't have coverage. You have a gesture.
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Send it through the form at the bottom of this page, or call. If it is one other people are asking too, it becomes an episode. We never name who asked.
The figures Ralph quotes come from the coverage pages on this site, which carry the date they were last reviewed. If a figure in an episode and a figure on a page ever disagree, the page is the one that has been updated, and we will say so under the episode.
The Insurance Insider Podcast
Ask Ralph is for the people who buy the coverage. For the agents who place it, our sister series Insurance Insiders sits down with the underwriters themselves to talk through carrier appetite, what is being declined and why, and what has changed in the market. New interviews are published there as they are recorded.
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Ralph Schiller
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