Covering Your Church When You Take Youth Trips
Jun 07
success Youth Group Snow Ski Insurance, Youth Groups Insurance, Youth Minister Insurance, Youth Ministry Insurance No Comments
3 critical areas of liability to cover when you take teenagers on trips.
Millions of dollars of medical and injury verdicts happen every year against churches. This subject can be huge.
1. Not everybody has health insurance these days. Don’t assume, verify. With so many people losing their jobs the teenagers may be embarrassed to tell you they don’t have health insurance right now.
2. As minors, if a problem does arise, a doctor or hospital may not be able to treat them without parental permission.
Both of these issues can be taken care of with a correctly crafted parental consent form. The form needs to give the parent’s permission for treatment and list all their insurance, including policy numbers and contact numbers. It would be great to have copies of the actual insurance cards.
3. Accidents can and do happen. Do you know what exclusions your church’s insurance policy has? Are you liable? Did you take unnecessary risks? Is it a risk to take a 16 year old boy, give him two sticks with sharp points and tell him to slide down a frozen slope? What precautions should you take? For example you might require all first time snow skiers to take a lesson. Picture yourself in a courtroom. Ask the question “did you take appropriate precautions?” Start your answer with “Yes your honor..” and go from there.
As a professional youth worker you need to know how to CYC (cover your church). There is insurance you should buy for the year, and insurance you should buy for the more risky events. The trip and event insurance is very inexpensive and is a must have. Click on the link under products for trip insurance and watch the video on covering your church when taking youth on trips,( under FREE TRAINING).
Find a lawyer in the church and pass all this by them. You can find someone in the church or denomination who will be glad to help with this. As important as it is to get this right for the health and safety of the teenagers, and as important as it is to cover your church when you take youth on trips and activities, getting this reviewed covers you.
So take your time, act like the professional that you are, and get covered. Happy trails.