Home day cares often lack insurance

Oklahoma law does not require child care centers to carry business liability insurance, but many choose to carry it anyway, said Kathy Cronemiller, president of Oklahoma Child Care Association.

Cronemiller's association consists mostly of owners and directors of child care centers, which are free-standing businesses that are not located inside homes.

"Most child care centers have this kind of insurance,” Cronemiller said.

It is in family day care homes that liability insurance often is missing, she said.

Why coverage is lacking?

A lot of family day care operators think they are covered through their homeowners' insurance, Cronemiller said.

They are often mistaken because homeowners' policies frequently contain a business exclusion clause. When an accident happens, the insurance company will deny the claim when it discovers children were being kept in the home and the operator had a license, she said.

"They don't realize that they have to go out and purchase additional insurance,” Cronemiller said. "They think they're covered until something happens and then it's too late.”

Cronemiller said her association plans to support legislation to require day cares to carry liability insurance and is working with a lobbyist on language to be included in the bill.

"We think we all need this insurance,” she said "And by making this law, it means DHS would have to enforce it. Right now, there's nobody that looks out for the parents that put their children in day care homes. ... How can you be caring for somebody's children today and not have any kind of insurance to back you up in case something happens?”

Reasonable rates sought

Cronemiller said her association already has been doing research to find reasonable insurance coverage for day care homes.

She said their research shows a family day care home could get liability insurance coverage up to $500,000 on each incident for $700 a year.

While situations vary, it likely would cost parents about $5 more per week if the costs are passed on to them, Cronemiller said.

Until recently, the issue of whether day cares should be required to carry liability insurance hasn't attracted much attention at the Department of Human Services.

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