Public Liability Insurance

HGK strongly recommends that all Educators have this.

Did you know that ACC will not pay you very much at all if you are injured while caring for children, as your end of year profit takes into account a lot of expenses deducted, and ACC only pay out on what you earned last financial year. Which for you new educators may be nothing!  ACC will only pay out 80% of what was taxable income.  So anything after the $3.15 per hour, the 380 odd per year, less household deduction etc.....

Public liability insurance (PLI) simply put means that you can be covered for situations given in the examples below:

(Please remember that I am generalising, not all forms of PLI cover all situations. As always, read the fine print!)

• You take your care children for a walk to the mall and one of them accidently trips and their ice cream goes all over some businessman’s Italian suit, ruining it. (ok, unlikely I admit but that’s what insurance is for!)
• A visiting grandparent slips over on your icy Christchurch driveway and breaks their leg, and ACC decides to sue you for not taking all care by putting up a sign.
• Your care child decides to kick a ball so hard that it goes over your fence and through your neighbours window showering them with glass
• Your DIY Hubby installs a very heavy remote controlled gate, and it falls off the runners, breaks a care child’s leg, and ACC won’t cover the parents time off work or a caregiver to assist and they decide to sue you!

Relax, in all these situations HGK will not desert you like other services might.

The point is that if you have an unfortunate incident as above while providing care you are liable to be sued in some situations. Fortunately in NZ, suing is not common, but what is common is ACC and/or the police taking on the matter.

PLI costs anything from $90 per year up to $200 per year, depending on who you talk to. The New Zealand Homebased Association www.nzhomebasedece.org.nz/ if you are a member, and you should be, provide PLI for a greatly reduced rate. 

It is our advice, our strong advice, that you take out some form of PLI so that you are covered in case you wind up in a situation as described above. We are not enforcing this, but please consider it.