Who asks a social work practice for what
| Who | What they usually want to see |
|---|---|
| Landlords & commercial leases | General liability with the landlord as additional insured, property coverage on tenant improvements and workers' compensation |
| Enterprise clients & vendor onboarding | General liability, professional or cyber liability, workers' compensation and often an umbrella |
| Grant funders & government contracts | General liability, professional and abuse coverage at stated limits, directors and officers, and a crime bond over any funds held |
Each of them wants a certificate, and most want it again at every renewal. A live certificate link from the wallet shows today's coverage to every holder and tells them when it changes.
How to check what you already have
- Professional liability declarations. Claims-made or occurrence, the retroactive date (it should not have moved), the limit per claim and aggregate, the deductible, and whether defence costs sit inside or outside the limit.
- Cyber declarations. The headline limit matters less than the sublimits: social engineering, funds-transfer fraud, ransomware and business interruption, plus the regulatory coverage and the panel of breach vendors.
- General liability declarations page. Three liability numbers matter: each occurrence, general aggregate and the products–completed operations aggregate. Then the forms list: blanket additional insured, waiver of subrogation and primary and non-contributory wording satisfy every contract; scheduled forms satisfy one.
- Workers' compensation information page. Item 3.A must list every state you work in, item 4 must carry the right class codes, and the employers' liability limits should meet what contracts ask. Check that the estimated payroll is close to this year's.
- Business owner's policy declarations. Liability limits on the first page, then the property section: building (if you own), business personal property, business income and the named extras such as spoilage, equipment breakdown or employee dishonesty. Confirm the property values are current.
- Property section. Limits for building, business personal property and tenant improvements against replacement cost, the coinsurance percentage, the deductible, and whether flood and earthquake are excluded (they usually are).
- Business income. The limit or actual-loss-sustained wording, the waiting period, the period of restoration and whether extra expense is included.
What usually goes wrong for social work private practices
- Mandated-reporting decisions, which produce complaints whichever way they go.
- Telehealth across state lines without the licence to match.
- Telehealth across state lines without the licence or the coverage to match.
- Tenant improvements insured by nobody, because the lease says one thing and the policy another.
- Property values set when the doors opened and never raised.
- Social engineering (wire fraud) sublimited to a small amount on a cyber policy with a large headline limit.
What underwriters will ask a social work practice
- Licence and states, telehealth share, client population, and records systems
- Licence types, telehealth share and whether minors are treated
- Whether any residential, crisis or substance-use services are provided
- Square footage, whether you own or lease, the building's age and sprinklers
- Replacement cost of the equipment, fixtures and stock on site
- Multi-factor authentication, backups and endpoint protection
Have the answers in the wallet before the renewal and the quote request fills itself in; CoverMatch sends one application to every eligible carrier and lines the quotes up against what you have.
Renewal timing
Claims-made policies make continuity the point: keep the retroactive date where it is, report circumstances as they arise, and never let a renewal lapse into a gap. Renewal autopilot starts the comparison sixty days out and shows the retroactive date on every quote.