Do I have to have insurance?

Hey guys,
I was just wondering if it was mandatory to have insurance when having a home daycare?
Thanks

I live in a apartment in Ontario, they building will not let me have the daycare if I did not have the extra daycare insurance. Its like having renters insurance or home owners insurance. Its up to you but for an extra $150, its more then worth it. I wouldn't go with out it. I don't have millions to pay to a family if something should happen.

Yes, if you want to be covered and have piece of mind.

Tricky question .... my understanding is if it is 'mandatory' depends on many things like what province do you live in, do you own or rent your home, do you have a mortgage on your home and so forth because there are 'vested parties' that may have rules that are 'in addition' to the Day Nursery Act for home childcare ;)

In Ontario if you are operating a private unregulated childcare it is strongly 'recommended' by the Ministry of Education to carry proper insurance but no one is going to come after you from their governing body and fine you or anything for 'choosing not to have insurance' ... the only time it becomes 'mandatory' is if you want to be in the 'regulated' industry than having proper insurance is a benchmark of being 'regulated' so that parents KNOW that all regulated providers must carry insurance ~ in the unregulated industry it is up to them to ask for proof of insurance if that is a 'concern' of theirs!

However if it is mandatory for your INSURANCE CARRIER or MORTGAGE COMPANY or PROVINCE any other vested business whom you work with that is a different story and something you will have to look into with each!

The risk is that without having proper insurance for your business if you have an incident in your program where a client or a clients child is harmed and a client tries to sue for that you are going to be in a heap of financial trouble without insurance ~ you could loose your home, any savings you have and be required to pay 'restitution' in monthly installments for the rest of your life to the person in question if you do not have enough money to pay any settlement all up front!

Or if your home is 'damaged' during the course of business being done in your home ~ a kid floods your house cause he put a toy in the toilet, a fire starts in your kitchen cause you got distracted by an accident of a child while cooking etc ~ if during the course of the investigation they find that you were 'doing business' from your home your insurance carrier could choose not to 'cover' the damages because you were not carrying the proper insurance policy to cover 'damage resulting from business' on your home owners insurance.

My understanding is that home owners insurance will not cover you for anything that happens on your property for business purposes unless you have a home business ryder for your industry on your policy ~ basically home owners insurance covers issues arising from personal use of the home only ~ so it is highly recommend that you need a 'home childcare ryder' ... specially if your MORTGAGE company requires you to carry proper insurance because if your policy is deemed 'void' because you did not have proper business coverage well than if your house burned down for example you would own the mortgage company all the remaining mortgage on it PLUS you'd have to come up with more money to rebuild your home without the aid of the insurance company and well good luck finding a second mortgage company willing to take you on :(

Seriously a home childcare ryder costs less than $150 a year provided you have proper home owner insurance already ... for less than $15 a month you can have the peace of mind of knowing that in a true tragedy you are not going to be worrying about 'am I going to loose my house over this'!

Thanks guys! My home daycare is opening in April. I will definetely be calling my insurance company and adding a ryder.