What to Know about Faith-Based Insurance
Faith-based organizations face specific risks to keep their members safe from potential liability cases related to the services they provide. Faith-based insurance for churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples protects your people, your services, and your religious organization’s buildings.
Every faith-based organization is different. Your faith-based insurance should be customized to fit its unique needs.
Here are your top questions answered about faith-based insurance for your religious organization:
1. What is faith-based insurance exactly?
Faith-based insurance for churches, religious orders, and faith organizations protects them financially against third-party injuries (congregation members for example) or property damage, lawsuits, theft, fire, vandalism, abuse, and cyberattacks.
It is insurance coverage tailored to your faith community, your staff, volunteers, visitors, your reputation, and your property.
2. Do faith-based organizations need commercial property insurance?
Yes, it is strongly recommended. Commercial property insurance is designed to protect your faith-based organization and its contents from unexpected event such as fire, theft, vandalism, r windstorms.
Commercial property insurance also covers the building’s contents such as computers, furniture, tools, equipment, and inventory.
3. Do religious organizations need what’s known as slip and fall insurance?
Yes. This type of insurance is called commercial general liability (CGL) insurance.
CGL, or slip and fall insurance, protects your place of worship from third-party property damage or claims of bodily injury, such as a parishioner who slips and falls n church property and is injured.
If your place of worship were sued, commercial general liability insurance would cover the legal costs to defend the claim in court, as well as costs to cover damages to compensate third parties.
What kind of risks does commercial general liability insurance help cover?
- Injury to a third party who is not your employee
- Damage to someone’s property
- Damage to rented property
- Medical bills if someone is injured
- Legal costs and settlement costs of liability lawsuits filed against you
- Liability lawsuits related to slander and libel
Without CGL insurance, your religious institution would need to pay any claims on its own.
4. Does my church’s board of directors need to be protected with insurance?
Directors and Officers (D&O) liability insurance protects your place of worship’s board of directors financially against claims of negligence.
Without the protection of D&O insurance, there could be a severe financial impact to your church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or other place of worship.
Directors and officers insurance protects board directors, officers, trustees, employees, volunteers, and ministry personnel for their personal liability due to actual or alleged breach of duty, errors, or misstatements in their responsibilities.
5. How much insurance should a religious organization have?
The answer is enough to protect your worshippers, staff, buildings, and services.
How much is enough? It depends on your faith-based organization’s budget and risks.
You should make sure that your religious organization has enough insurance to help protect it against financial risks such as lawsuits and for insured perils such as fire and vandalism.
it’s also important to consider how much money can be spent annually on insurance coverage.
Ask your Western Financial Group business insurance expert to help you get customized faith-based coverage to protect your church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or other place of worship.
