Home daycare insurance: the homeowners question and the coverage to price

Whether a homeowners policy covers a family child care operation is set by the policy itself, and that is the first thing to establish in writing. Before you enroll children, ask your insurer or a licensed agent the question directly: does my policy cover caring for other people's children for pay in my home — and if not, what would need to change?

Get the answer in writing and keep it with your program's records.

Our research for this page did not establish what any given homeowners policy does with a home daycare — that turns on the policy's own terms — so this page will not generalize about policies we have not read.

What the question is really asking, though, is concrete, and your insurer can answer each part: are the children you are paid to care for covered if they are hurt in your home; does the answer change once you are licensed, or once you hire an assistant; are program equipment and supplies treated as household property; and if you drive children anywhere for the program, does the policy respond at all?

What makes this a purchase to make rather than an assumption to carry is the exposure a home program creates: the children you are paid to care for are not members of your household, and the program runs on set hours with other families' children in your home.

Whether a claim connected to your program's operation would be handled the way a household claim is — or at all — is exactly what the written answer needs to establish, and if the answer is that it is not covered, the liability coverage in the next section is what you price instead.

Liability coverage is the layer to price first, because it is the coverage the state rules in the next section write their minimums around — each of the four state rules there writes its requirement around liability insurance. It is the coverage that would face a claim that your program's operation hurt a child — the exposure the homeowners question circles — so it goes at the front of your quote requests.

When you ask an agent or broker for quotes on coverage for a home daycare, make them answer the same questions you put to your homeowners insurer — how the policy responds to a child hurt in care, to a family's claim that the program caused an injury, and to the work an assistant does — and ask for the answers in the policy documents rather than a sales summary.

Ask each carrier to quote the program as it will actually operate: your licensed capacity, the ages you plan to serve, whether you employ anyone, and any driving you do for the program.

A quote built on those facts is the only price worth holding onto, and identical limits and coverage terms across quotes are what make the comparison real.

An assistant adds a second coverage conversation.

Workers' compensation rules — including employee-count thresholds — are set state by state and were not researched at the national level for this page, so confirm them with the agency that administers workers' compensation where you operate before your assistant's first day.

The hiring side of that step is on the home daycare assistant guide.

A childcare center prices a wider stack, and the daycare insurance guide walks those layers for center owners: general and professional liability, abuse and molestation coverage, property and business auto.

Which of them belong in a home program's quote is shaped by your own operation — the residence, the household and the license category you hold — so start from your own policy answers rather than from a center's.

No verified premium figure sits in this research, so this page quotes no numbers. Premiums are carrier quotes priced to a specific program — anyone quoting a monthly figure for home daycare insurance before seeing your operation is guessing, and so would we be.

What states publish, where their rules require coverage, are minimum policy limits rather than prices — the state rules in the next section show the difference.

Your real number comes from a quote process: request quotes from carriers or agents who write child care risks, hold the limits and coverage terms identical across them, and read what each policy excludes before you compare prices.

Where insurance sits in a startup budget, and what the lines around it cost, is on the cost to start a daycare page.

Whether your state's child care licensing agency requires a home daycare to carry insurance — and at what amount — is a state rule, and the states' minimum insurance requirements were not researched at the national level for this page. The authoritative answer for your program comes from the agency itself: ask what proof of insurance your license category requires and at what amount before you file, and work from the agency's own requirements packet rather than from any national summary.

The state rules this research did verify show how differently states write the requirement.

Texas requires listed family homes to carry $100,000 per-occurrence liability insurance or give parents written notice that coverage is not provided (HRC §42.0495).

Ohio requires a family child care provider to carry at least $100,000 per occurrence and $300,000 aggregate, or give every parent a signed statement that the home has no such insurance (OAC 5180:2-13).

Kentucky requires family child care home applicants to obtain commercial liability insurance of at least $50,000 per occurrence among its certification requirements (922 KAR 2:100).

And in Nevada, a license applicant must submit a certificate of liability insurance before the license issues (NAC 432A.200).

Two things are worth reading closely in those rules.

The dollar minimums are state floors for state license categories — not a national minimum, and not a recommendation for your program.

And the coverage requirement comes with the states' own mechanism for a home that operates without the coverage: written notice to parents in Texas, a signed statement in Ohio.

Those alternatives belong to those states' rules — they are not a general option and not this page's advice — and what your state allows is a licensing-agency question.

Licensing status frames the question, and the national picture there is dated.

As of 2020, a federal-funded scan listed Louisiana, New Jersey and South Dakota as the states with no mandatory licensing for any home-based providers — licensing there is voluntary, and its requirements applied when providers were paid with public funds.

License-exempt status is also not free of federal requirements: a provider paid with CCDF subsidy must meet federal health, safety and background-check requirements even without a license, with the relatives specified in 45 CFR 98.42(c) the main exception to the health-and-safety rules.

Neither answer settles insurance: put that question to your state child care licensing agency and your insurer, alongside the licensing steps on the home daycare startup guide.

This page is employer information, not licensing or legal advice. Insurance requirements, licensing rules and workers' compensation rules are state-specific and change; confirm your state's current requirements with your state child care licensing agency, and take coverage and policy questions to a licensed insurance professional.