Institutes of post secondary education are now purchasing coverage for new kinds of risk.
As students return to their campuses, this fall, they may discover that college insurance policies are now taking an entirely new shape due to the shifts that are taking place in the culture of these communities.
These schools are becoming increasingly aware of the risk that sexual attacks can have when they occur on campus.
For that reason, these schools have taken a number of steps to change the way in which accusations of abuse are being handled. Some have gone to the lengths of creating educational programs that allow students to become more aware of how to protect themselves and what to happen if the worst should occur. Others have reformed their policies for abuse accusation case handling. That said, the trend is also growing for college insurance policies to be purchased that will protect themselves against scandals associated with sexual misconduct on their grounds.
Recently, college insurance protection of this nature has become more available through insurers.
There are a number of insurance companies that are now selling sexual misconduct policies that have designed specifically to help schools to overcome the costs associated with accusations of sexual assault, and with the scandals that can often follow. For example, in Pennsylvania, the Tuscano Agency began selling a policy in 2012 for up to $1 million in coverage and that comes with a price tag of $10,000.
Some of these insurance policies do not provide coverage for the type of expenses that are faced by the person who is actually accused of an assault. Others will not cover a college that has failed to make a report of the case to the authorities when it was their obligation to do so. This, according to the United Educators vice president in charge of business development and marketing, Joe Carter. That company provides policies to nearly 700 colleges in the United States.
While there is a growing trend toward this additional college insurance policy, the majority of schools still do not have standalone coverage against sexual misconduct. The reason is that many rely on their liability protection to cover them against violence claims of this nature. That said, among the reasons that the standalone policies are being purchased more frequently is that the expenses associated with helping victims, investigating allegations, and paying for litigation can now climb very rapidly and can rise above the limits of standard protection.
