Business Insurance in the aged care sector is an essential tool to protect your facility, your employees and residents from the impact of unexpected events. As a facility with a duty of care, insurance also helps to uphold a reputation of safety and preparedness for any incidents. Insurance costs, however, can be a significant expense to your aged care business.
What if there were some ways that you could reduce the cost of coverage? Here are some elements to keep in mind that will assist in lowering premiums and maintaining quality cover for less, so that you may direct your finances towards resident care and other important areas of business operation.
The Importance of Reasonable Aged Care Insurance
Quality insurance for aged care facilities is vital, as insurance covers against Property, material damage and other financial losses. To ensure you are not subject to underinsurance clauses, as well as to maintain expedited outcomes that will have the lowest impact on resident care, Property Insurance and Business Interruption cover is especially crucial.
When determining the cost of premiums, insurance companies will assess the risk of insuring your business, the scale and reinstatement and replacement value to determine how much to charge you. The higher the likelihood of you filing a claim may be, whether this be due to geographic location or past history, the higher the premium will be.
Following good insurance and risk management practices, and taking measures to potentially lower this cost, can save your facility from further expenses.
7 ways to reduce insurance costs for aged care facilities
1. Reduce claims
As an insurance company adopts some risk of your business suffering a loss, so if the risk of loss is higher this will lead to a higher premium to compensate. If you have an increased tendency to claim, this can lead to higher premiums. Past performance is often used as a measure for future performance unless the Insurer can be convinced otherwise.
Taking steps to reduce the number of claims that are made will show insurers that risk is less likely, and reduce premiums. It is also beneficial to adopt any risk management initiatives that are suggested following a loss.
2. Good claim management
For past claims, it is beneficial to display that any incidents have been documented and investigated in order to prevent a similar incident from recurring. This will demonstrate that the facility takes risk management seriously, and that the chances of the same claim being made is low.
3. Compliance with regulations
Displaying compliance with regulations is important to avoid penalties, legal liability, and reputational damage. As well as this, it assists in reducing risk of non-compliance-related claims and incidents which also works to lower costs of cover.
4. Visible commitment to safety
An Insurance Broker will often prefer to work with facilities that demonstrate commitment to safety and risk management. If you are visibly working to reduce likelihood and severity of incidents and claims, this has the potential to lead to lower premiums.
A visible commitment to safety can look like the implementation of health and safety education, training and supervision, emergency plans, risk control and regular review of safety processes.
5. Risk assessments
Regular assessments of potential risks and hazards can help insurance providers offer tailored policies and premiums. This involves the identification of potential hazards that could affect employees, residents or members of the public, as well as an assessment of the risk of each hazard and the identification of methods to control or eliminate risk.
6. Reduction of insurable risks
Reducing insurable risks such as property damage or personal injury can lead to lower premiums. This can be done by assessing and removing risk, replacing and reducing exposures or providing protective gear to protect against risk.
Kiri Align offers more useful information on risk prevention.
7. Employee retention
With good risk management, employee retention can increase as employees are more likely to stay in a safe work environment. Reducing employee turnover is also known to lower associated insurance costs.
Competitive Aged Care Insurance with Atlantic Insurance
Atlantic Insurance has been a respected provider of insurance to aged care clients since the early 1990s. Our experienced team has seen 25 years of claim scenarios, aged care industry trends, best practices and legislative requirements, acquiring the knowledge as an aged care Insurance Broker to minimise financial impact and allow you to focus on your resident care.
Contact us to learn more about our comprehensive, customised insurance programs.
Any information contained on this page of the website is general advice only and has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Your should consider these, having regard to the appropriateness of this advice and the relevant Product Disclosure Statement (‘PDS’), Target Market Determination (‘TMD’) and Financial Services Guide (‘FSG’), which will be provided following any formal recommendation to you.
