Currently my school has a PTA but is researching the pros/cons of becoming a PTO. One question of ours was that of insurance. (We have not found a provider though.) I asked our State PTA what was is purpose of the liability ins. & she gave me the following two scenarios:
(currently under litigation) A volunteer was injured (fell off ladder) at an after-Prom function held on school grounds. The school's ins. covered the prom function, but not any functions afterwards, but the school's PTA insurance did. The PTA paid for the volunteer's medical expenses, but the lawyer decided more $$ could be collected for the injured and thus listed the current board members in the law suit. Another scenario: if the PTA paid for playground equip. and a couple years later a child was injured playing on it. During searching the lawyer finds that the PTA purchased the equipment, will incl. the board members on the suit.
I am unsure on the accuracy of the later, but hope it helps.
Carolyn - we thought the same thing about insurance and the PTA. In our state the state PTA insurance policy was $240 or something like that. We found our own policy for under $400. So when it came down to it we would have been spending $1100 in dues to save $160 on insurance.
Just in case anyone missed it, there's another post a few items down called "PTO Insurance" that also has several responses on this topic. But I have some new items to add. I don't pretend to be an expert in this area, but here's what I was told.
We are in Texas, and I recently asked a financial planner/friend about this. She said that she encourages all her clients that play leadership roles in a volunteer organization to get a "Liability Umbrella" added to to their personal/household insurance and that this would probably add about $100 a year to the premiums. (We also got this same advice from the mortgage broker when we bought our house last year without any regard to being a volunteer.) Even though most things would be covered under the school's responsibility, everyone seems to sue everyone if something DOES happen.
However, I just got off the phone with my insurance agent, who happens to be with All State. She advised us not to pursue this. She said EVERYONE seems to be recommending the Umbrellas, but it's not needed by many people. First, their company policy (which is pretty standard) is that a client has to have at least $500,000 in assets before they can get an umbrella policy, which covers the client for an additional million dollars. She said the plan would add $155 more per year, plus, for some reason the car liability amounts would need to be raised adding another $65.
With our assets and our current coverage, she recommended against it. Our home, our major asset, is protected against as a homestead, and our current coverage should be adequate.
I'd suggest anyone with questions discuss this with their own insurance representative.
Our PTO falls under our school umbrella policy also. I am not worried one iota about being sued personally. I wonder how often THAT happens. I think what we have had for 11 years now has worked fine for us. We have never had a problem.--Has anyone ever needed to use the insurance? Could you explain why?
We're in the same boat. We're being told that we need to buy liability insurance to protect our exec. members against law suits. We've gotten quotes ranging from $300 - $350 for a $1,000,000 policy. I'm not exactly sure why we need it. The districts insurance agency told us that if someone is hurt on school property the school policy kicks in but that any good lawyer would also go after the executive members of the PTO. Now we're wondering if we should join the PTA so that we can take advantage of the liability insurance they offer for $150 a year. Can anyone shed a little this complex topic?
