SAM Insurance: Common Questions
What does SAM stand for in insurance, and is it a real policy?
Sexual abuse and molestation. It is a real line, written by specialist carriers either as a standalone policy or as an endorsement to a general-liability policy, and the contracts that ask for it under any of its names, abuse and molestation, sexual misconduct liability, vicarious sexual misconduct, are asking for the same thing. The policy does not cover the person who commits abuse. It covers the organization that employed, placed, or supervised him.
Is abuse and molestation coverage included in general liability?
Not usually, and not in any useful amount. Most general-liability forms exclude it, or add it back at a sublimit of around $25,000, where a standalone policy typically writes $1 million per victim, 40 times as much. The words to look for on a declarations page are "abuse" or "molestation," and the thing to read is the number next to them.
What limits do school districts and contracts usually ask for?
One million dollars per occurrence, with an aggregate of $2 million or $3 million depending on the district or the agency, the district named as additional insured, and, now and then, a waiver of subrogation. The inquiries that reached this page in September and early October carried that wording from a Florida county school board, a California regional center, and a New York youth grant. The contract's insurance clause, sent in with the inquiry, is what the quote is written to.
How much does SAM insurance cost?
Between $2,000 and $40,000 a year for $1 million of standalone cover, in four tiers: $2,000 – $5,000 for supervised programs with little one-on-one exposure, $5,000 – $10,000 where staff have regular one-on-one contact, $10,000 – $15,000 for overnight or custodial care of adults, and $15,000 – $40,000 for residential or custodial care of minors. Prevention controls, claims history, and the state decide where in a tier an organization lands. The cost section above has the charts.
Do we need SAM coverage if we only work with adults?
The exposure follows dependency rather than age. Residents of skilled-nursing and assisted-living facilities, clients of disability services and behavioral-health programs, and people receiving care in their own homes account for a large share of abuse claims, and the contracts those organizations sign ask for the cover in the same words a school district uses.
Is SAM insurance different in California?
The cover is the same; the demand is not. Of the 24 inquiries this page received in September and early October 2026, nine came from California, more than from any other state, and nearly all of them were set in motion by a regional center's vendor contract or a school district's agreement that specified abuse and molestation limits. California also abolished, from 2024, the statute of limitations for future child sexual assault claims, which is one of the reasons carriers price the state with care. The application is the same anywhere. The contract wording is the thing to send.
Why would a carrier decline to quote us?
For one of a short list of reasons: no documented background-check program, no abuse-prevention training, a prior claim or allegation that was not disclosed, a one-to-one service model with no supervision controls around it, or an application whose staff and screening sections arrived blank, which underwriters will not read past. An open allegation or a known, unreported incident is a different matter and is declined almost everywhere. The rest are repaired in a few weeks by putting the controls in writing and producing the evidence. Homewood's free policy templates are the documents carriers expect to see.
Does buying standalone coverage make it look like we have a problem?
No. Carriers and counterparties read it the other way around. School districts, regional centers, and grant funders increasingly require it, and an underwriter who sees a dedicated policy sitting beside documented controls sees an organization that has thought about the risk, which is the organization he would rather insure. What underwriters do probe is a policy bought only because a contract demands it and for no reason of the applicant's own. The answer that satisfies them is the counterparty's name and the clause itself, which is one more reason the contract goes in with the application.
How long does it take to place?
Four to seven business days in most cases, counted from a complete application. Carriers will quote before the prevention measures are in place, and will not bind until they are documented, so the applications that take weeks are the ones in which the background checks and the written policy are being chased after the quote instead of before it.
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