Child Injury Lawyer Blog
By David Wolf, Attorney
Published by Child Injury Lawyer Network
Children enrolled in day care centers are at times the unfortunate victims of personal injuries while under the supervision of the day care center. Many personal injuries result from inadequate supervision or the improper maintenance at the facility. When a child is injured as a result of the negligence, carelessness, or inattention of a day care center, a parent should seek legal representation and advice regarding the rights to compensation of the injured child. If injuries resulted from the negligence of the day care center, a claim can be pursued under or through the day care center’s liability insurance policy. This brings up two important but different questions:
1. Is the day care center required to have liability insurance place?
2. Does the day care center have liability insurance in place?
The answers to these questions depend on the laws in place for the particular location or site of the day care center. It may also depend on the type, size, and license held by the day care center. Some states require a day care center to have liability insurance in place. For instance, the State of Maine has regulations that require day care centers to have liability insurance in place. In some other states, there is no such requirement for the day care center have liability insurance in place. If there are if there are regulations that require a day care center to have liability insurance in place, then the day care center should follow the regulations; however, many day care centers do not follow the regulations and fail to have the required liability coverage.
This brings us to the second question: Does the day care center have liability insurance in place? Just because the regulations set forth a requirement for liability insurance, this does not mean that the day care center actually has a policy of insurance in place. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that some incidents that occur at day care center are excluded from many insurance policies including assaults, sexual molestations, corporal punishment, and other incidents and bad acts. Because of this, it is important to for a parent to consult a Child Injury Lawyer to review the insurance policy to see what is covered and what is not covered under a particular claim or case. When a parent evaluates a potential day care center, the parent should request a copy of the license, recent survey reports, and a copy of the declaration page for the liability insurance policy. A parent should not assume that the facility is licensed or that the facility has insurance in place.
The book titled – The ABCs of Child Injury – Legal Rights of the Injured Child – What Every Parent Should Know – has chapters on Day Care Center Injuries, School Injuries, Damages / Compensation, Medical Bills / Medical Treatment, and other topics. Get this book for free at The ABCs of Child Injury.