Getting insurance can be a hassle, as if bill days weren’t bad enough, you actually have to pay people for something that you might never use. But-and this is a big but-every month I still send out my bill with a signed dated check.

Just in case.

As a new budding entrepreneur, you’re going to encounter a lot of new challenges daily with your daycare center. Protecting yourself from risk, exposure or any liability is a must for you. This will definitely add to your peace of mind as the business owner. Your insurance can cover everything from property damage to child injury. Why should you wait until something like it happens before you get any sort of protection?

There are several kinds of insurance that you need as a daycare owner. The following are the basic types of insurance that you will need as a new business owner and day care operator.

Business insurance – First and foremost, your day care is a business. Getting business insurance will protect you from future losses, as well as protect your future or current employees. Insuring your business protects your investments and in the long run, protects you.

Fire, accident and other basic insurance – These are the kinds of insurance you would get for yourself to protect your home or place of business. Don’t worry; there are many insurance agencies that include this with basic business packages and other special types of insurance.

Daycare Liability Insurance – Your insurance company may cover this as part of your business insurance or separately. The type of insurance that you’d want to get depends on the kind of day care that you own. Don’t be afraid to shop around for the best kind of insurance for you. Your daycare liability insurance will cover everything from loss, bodily injury, even possible legal costs in the future. General liability will normally cover everything from child care, field trips and even child abuse allegations. Daycare liability differs for home daycare centers and commercial daycare centers. Ask your insurance provider now how you can get the best deal from your current coverage.

Errors and Omissions Insurance – This type of insurance gives you maximum coverage for your daycare center. Errors and Omissions is the type of insurance that covers negligence, personal injury, field trips, $50,000-$100,000 for unforeseen circumstances and even medical expenses for the children in your care, including clauses for accidents and accidental death.

These are the basic types of daycare insurance that you should get. Keep in mind that you shouldn’t neglect other areas of insurance, even simple things like auto insurance. These can go a long way towards helping you in the future. Talk to different insurance providers about possible packages and requirements you need to have. Different types of insurance have different requirements and these may vary, depending on where you live. Getting coverage is one way for you to guarantee that you’ll stay in business no matter what happens. That’s one reason to send out your check every month. At the very least, you’ll know that if a crisis comes, you’ll be ready and waiting.

See: How to start a daycare.

Dolson McArt – Author of: Kinds Of Insurance That You Need As A Daycare Owner
Contributing to EzineArticles.com since March 2007.

Daycare centers for children are something more than the usual ones which we come across. They do have the usual play pen, garden and toys for the child to play with, but these centers serve as a great alternative to a nanny. Moreover, not everybody can find a good and reliable babysitter for their child. Older kids also need to be cared for in their parents’ absence. They may not need to be supervised as much as toddlers, but they have different concerns to be dealt with.

Again, Child daycare centers are divided into Family daycare centers and Facility daycare centers. The latter are useful for children above 12 years of age. In case of Family daycare centers, the kids are usually very young and hence the license rules regarding the same are very strict. You may select any of the above types of child daycare centers for your business. But you must remember that any parent will expect a secured, welcoming atmosphere for their bundle of joy when they are not around. If you love children, find out which age group suits you best. This will help you to enjoy your time with them. Moreover, you will be all charged up when you know you are going to deal with babies or adolescents, whichever is your forte.

You may choose to start your business from your own house or rent out a suitable place for the same. It is important that you keep it dirt free and give an excellent service. For doing this, you can start by making it child proof. No sharp corners, open electrical sockets etc for the children. Your center should have a proper lighting system. Check that the fence is in a good condition, so that no vehicle can just barge in while the kids are at play. In case you do have some open ground for the kids to play, ensure that it is away from the main road and make arrangements to keep it safe. The security of the kids is your responsibility till they are in your center in your care. You must be overtly cautious while dealing with toddlers as they are prone to trying out new things that my lead to accidents. You can tie up with a nearby physician to help you out in such emergencies.

Next important thing which you will need to do is study the different laws applicable to your venture. You will need to obtain a license from the concerned authority and fulfill all the legal needs before starting your own daycare center. This will help you to chalk out the different plans for designing your daycare center and make a schedule for its activities. You may require employing some workforce to assist you in this. Doing your homework for this business is highly profitable, as you will have a clear idea of the excellent service which you want to offer and the efforts you need for the same.

The author is a freelance article writer with articles on varied subjects.

But how can you know if this is the business for you? You need to answer these questions:

1. Do you like children? Daycare involves working with children for hours and hours. If you don’t like children a lot, you have no place in the daycare business. And don’t just say that everybody likes children. Liking them and working with them are totally different things. You have to truly love children to make it in this business.

2. Do you want to start your own business? This isn’t specific for the daycare business, but is still a fundamental question. If you don’t want to be a financially independent business person, you shouldn’t start a business at all, let alone a daycare center.

3. Are you prepared to put in some hard work? Daycare isn’t the hardest of businesses to maintain, but you still need to put in some initial effort to get it off the ground. If you’d rather spend your time doing something else, I suggest you stick to your day job.

4. Are you prepared to put some money into your business? You don’t need a large investment in order to start a day care. But some initial investment is still required. You need to buy toys, books, business forms, and spend a little on advertising. You can get back your money a 100 times over if you do things right, but not without that investment.

If you’ve answered “yes” to the four questions I wrote above, than you should seriously consider opening your own daycare center.

Lucy Doyle runs a home business and is an expert on starting and operating successful daycare centers. To read how you can too become a successful businesswoman by starting your own profitable daycare visit Lucy Doyle’s expert webpage on starting daycare centers at this dedicated webpage: http://www.squidoo.com/startingadaycare

For information on how to open a daycare center, visit this dedicated webpage: Starting A Daycare

The average daycare provider is not a business person. They simply love kids and normally want to supplement the family income by watching a few kids. The idea of factoring in the risk compared to the upside doesn’t seem to be part of the equation, as most moms just think about if they can handle having that many kids around day after day.

For us, and as far as insurance goes, we were very surprised to learn that our home owner’s insurance company, AAA Michigan, would not continue covering our house due to the daycare. So, we had to get a new, more expensive policy that would allow for daycare liability insurance on top of that. It was a 38% premium which was another $450 per year on top of the previous bill.

Just so you know how serious this is I had two major accidents, after the last I decided to quit. The first was a very innocent situation as a 2 year old girl simply fell while walking and happened to have her nose land directly on top of a toy cell phone. The result was a gash right across the bridge of her little nose. It was probably a one in a million fall if you can say that about such a terrible thing as the chances of her noise landing right on the hard plastic piece of the toy seems almost impossible.

You would have thought she had been stabbed by the amount of blood that was coming out. There was blood on the floor, walls and basically a trail throughout the house as I scrambled looking for a towel to stop the bleeding. Even my shirt was covered in blood. When I saw that in the mirror I was shocked. It was like a movie.

She received six stitches and I was freaked out in a very real sense. It really hit me right between the eyes that I had their little lives in my hands and that responsibility was alarming. It also hit me right between the eyes that if the parents wanted to sue that they probably had a case and I would be in for some more trouble. I felt horrible for the girl, and of course was scared to death about all of it.

The parents were great about it though and understood that it was an accident to my complete relief. At that point I was done with daycare mentally, but out of routine kept going. To this day we are still very close with the parents and the scar is almost completely gone – thank God.

However the last major incident put the “nail in the coffin” for me as a 12 month old simply fainted – for no reason. I sincerely thought she was dying as I panicked and picked up her limp body (I was about to start CPR when she started to breathe again) and rushed all of the kids to the hospital… I was crying uncontrollably and could not believe what was going on. She woke up smiling like nothing happened as I continued to freak out, shaking. I called all the parents that night (still crying) and gave them my 2 week notice.

As I turns out the girl has a rare disease which is not serious. The parent’s doctor assured both me and the mom that she’ll most likely grow out of it and that she will probably continue to faint once a while and that it is not that big of a deal. This gave me no reassurance and I kept to my decision to move on – or more appropriately RUN on.

Tania Rauth. Author of “Start Daycare-Develop Twitch” More info on running a daycare at starting a daycare or how to run a daycare or opening a daycare.

Statistics

Statistics reveal that the fastest growing sector in the child care industry is the many small businesses. These entities mostly operate from homes. According to US Census Bureau, nearly 70 percent of the child care related businesses are home based. A whopping 17 percent of the Moms are using the services of the neighborhood child care centers for their pre-school children. Kinder-Care, La Petite Academy, National Childcare Academy and Gerber products are some of the few big names of the industry.

Laws & Regulations

Recent rulings have deployed stringent rules in order to curb the risk of injuries to babies. Governments and parents have come together to create child safety laws, not only for the establishments but for parents too. These laws strss that the daycare should provide a home like setting. Licensed providers are required to take trainings before dealing with child care. The facilities should be regularly visited by the authorities and a group of parents from the local neighborhoods. The US laws restrict a single provider to take care of more than 6 children. On the other hand, parents are obliged to put their child in the day care center in their own community, except for mothers working full-time.

Child Injuries

Childcare safety statistics reveal the fact that there were 56 casualties in the daycare settings from 1990 to 1997. Almost half of these deaths were caused due to Asphyxia. In 1997 alone, over 31,000 children were hospitalized due to the injuries related to a child care setting. A recent study by the Society of pediatrics and Center for the control of disease focused on facilities that included federal institutions, private institutes and small businesses. The study found that the playgrounds posed the biggest hazard to a child.

. The most hazardous conditions included the use of unsafe cribs, poor maintenance and hard surface of the playground, very soft bedding and absence of the safety gates.

Safety Measures

Professionals recommend avoiding the use of furniture that can entrap the child’s head or other part of the body. Any elevated surface that is not guarded should also be sealed off. Such surface also includes stairs. Similarly, fall-zones such as swimming pools and main holes provide a significant threat to the well being of a child. The design of the intended child care product should match the age and size of the children. Day care centers should ensure that they have the proper inventory for all the ages of the child, they admit.

Tripping hazards such as wires should immediately be removed from the premises. These also include any electrical appliance. Children have the natural tendency to poke their fingers in the wall sockets. It is mandatory for a child care center to seal off such openings. All components are to be avoided that can crush or bruise body tissues. Playground equipment should be inspected and any large swings or slides, to be removed. Stuff toys which can suffocate a small child are also a problem. In short, the best remedy for avoiding a disaster is acute attention and a common sense.

Gary Pearson is an accomplished niche website developer and author.

To learn more about child care safety visit Child Safety Shop for current articles and discussions.

Daycare forms are filled by parent before you will accept the child under your care. This form requires the parent to submit medical record of the child, if the child has an allergy, asthma or any serious disease that need special treatment. This form must be sign by the parents to avoid problems. Another form they should submit is the updated immunization of the child with doctors’ signature. These are some proper ways to avoid lawsuit in the future. But accident with children while playing is not avoidable. Liability insurance comes handy if such accident happens.

Every state has rules and regulation about child care. And they imposed the daycare provider to secure license and insurance for their business. Liability insurance pays or settles the medical expenses of a child in case accident occurs in your house premises. You pay a certain amount in insuring this liability insurance. This liability insurance doesn’t cover child abuse. This insurance will pay the damage incase you lose in a lawsuit.

There are liability limit in any insurance, depending on how much you pay for the said insurance. The higher you pay for the said insurance, the higher insurance premium you will get. If your policy liability is $100,000 and the damage cost or hospital bill to be settled is $150,000, you are liable to pay the remaining $50,000. The insurance will pay the $100.000 but you are obliged to pay the remaining balance for the cost or damage.

Insurance liability cost depends on the coverage you want. This will include on how many children enrolled in your daycare center. The higher you pay for the premium, the higher the amount of money you will get from the policy.

Insurance premiums vary from one company to another depending on the insurance coverage they offer. You can seek advised from professional. They can help and explain the insurance policy you needed in your daycare center. The premium cost annually is $680 to $960 and the maximum coverage is $ 1,000,000 and the lowest coverage is $25,000.00 if you pay the premium of $290 to $416 annually.

It is better if you seek legal advised before you buy insurance policy. Some legal term may not be clear to you. It is best to seek legal advised. There are two form of insurance, the claim made and the occurrence form. Occurrence form is better than claim even the policy expires they will still cover the accident. Claim made only covers the policy while you are still paying the premium currently, if the policy has expired, they will not cover the accident. Accident insurance is much cheaper then the liability insurance and it offer small premium.

Before you start your own business make sure you settle all requirements needed. Make listing and preparation for your daycare center. You can check online for additional information you need regarding the insurance liability for your daycare center.

See: How to start a daycare

Dolson McArt – Author of: Daycare Provider – Childcare Insurance