Filling the Gaps: Top Reasons Why You May Need Accident and Health Insurance

Roughly 39.5 million people visit a doctor because of an unintentional injury each year. Slips, falls, unintentional poisonings, and other types of injuries can happen to anyone at any time.

Accident and health insurance can help protect people and organizations from the financial repercussions of such an event. As a decision-maker in your company or nonprofit, you may be wondering if this is a type of insurance that you should buy. Read on to learn about group accident insurance and some of the top reasons why you should buy it.

What Is Accident and Health Insurance?

First of all, what is accident insurance? Supplemental accident insurance is a type of insurance policy that you can buy to complement your regular general liability policy. It is useful for businesses such as:

• Schools
• Gyms
• Non-profits
• Daycares
• Sports-related businesses
• Extra-curriculars

Unlike a general liability policy that has a lot of exceptions and certain circumstances, accident insurance is simple to understand. It is blanket coverage that covers anyone who has an accident on your premises or when taking part in your business’ activities.

This means everyone, including coaches, participants, athletes, fans, students, and volunteers are covered. They are also covered when en route to or from events, tournaments, games, etc.

This type of overarching, blanket policy is useful for filling gaps in coverage, especially those you might not realize you have. Everyone in your organization from management to volunteers will rest easier knowing that any tragic events will be covered.

Accidents Can Happen to Anyone… at Any Time

Accidents are unpredictable. That’s why they’re called accidents. It’s true that someone who regularly engages in extreme sports or who likes to go jogging along a narrow road at night is more likely to suffer an accident. However, the reality is that anyone can suffer an accident at any time.

What does this mean for you as a business owner or decision-maker in your business? Every one of your customers, volunteers, or anyone else on your premises can get hurt, even if it’s something as simple as tripping and falling down the stairs. If you run a gym or offer other sports-related activities, the risk goes up.

Accident and health insurance provides the money they need to pay for their medical bills. This type of “peace of mind” is priceless for everyone involved, but particularly for your organization or company who could be responsible for a major bill.

General Liability Can Get More Expensive with a Claim

Many types of claims that can be covered under an accident and health insurance claim are already covered under your general liability. However, there is something important for you to realize.

Take a look at your general liability insurance premium. It’s already pretty expensive in comparison to accident insurance, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, whenever you make a claim on general liability insurance, your premium tends to go up. So that expensive premium you’re looking at can get even more expensive.

Supplemental accident insurance to cover injuries and accidents that occur can help manage your insurance costs and help keep them down where you prefer them to be.

Additionally, general liability insurance policies are not “no-fault” policies. This means that if you’re trying to defend yourself against a claim of negligence, you’ll end up with a set of legal fees that you’ll have to pay. Your liability insurance won’t cover this part.

It is also possible that your general liability policy won’t cover as much as you think it will. You don’t want to wait until something terrible happens to find out that your policy doesn’t cover it. Do your homework now to learn what your insurance covers and if you should supplement with accident insurance. (The short answer is that you probably do need to supplement).

Fills the Gap Left by Workers’ Compensation

Workers’ compensation is a handy program that insures employees while they are on the job. You can rest easy knowing that if any of your employees suffer an accident at work there is money to cover their medical bills and other expenses.

However, what happens if something happens to a volunteer working with your organization? Workers’ compensation doesn’t always cover volunteers and may not be useful in this situation. Unless the volunteer has their own insurance, they could be stuck for a big bill that they probably can’t pay — and you could be responsible as well.

Accident insurance can put you and your volunteers’ minds at ease. If any volunteer gets hurt while participating in events for your organization, the incident will be covered.

This has the added benefit of potentially attracting more volunteers. People love knowing that the organization they are working with values them as people and not just for what they can contribute to the organization.

Want to Learn More About Accident and Health Insurance?

Don’t hesitate to reach out to your insurance broker about this extremely helpful form of insurance. With an accident and health insurance policy you can stop worrying about accidents and inconveniences messing up your plans. Instead, you can rest easy that if anything happened to anyone at your business, they’re covered.

Best of all, you don’t have to worry about trying to come up with the money to cover their medical expenses. You can get a check from the insurance company and that’s the end of it.

So, is accident insurance worth it? It certainly seems to be. Don’t hesitate to reach out today to learn more about this type of insurance or take out a policy.