Education

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Serving the education community

Education institutions face a raft of risks every day. From property damage to employee injury, insurers pay out tens of millions of pounds each year for claims relating to the education sector. So securing the right insurance to protect your establishment (and everyone in it) is key.

Why choose us?

We’re well placed to help safeguard the education community and address its complex needs. We provide cover to over 1,000 UK schools, colleges, and universities, and have established relationships with market-leading insurers, nurtured over decades. And with the education and student division of Howden, formerly Endsleigh, we can offer 60 years’ experience serving your community. 

But insurance is just the start. We can also deliver a complete support package. From on-site risk management audits to wellbeing programmes and employee benefits, we’re committed to shaping our services around you. 

Protection for your educational establishment

We’ll work closely with you to find insurance that protects everything you need it to, in line with your budget. This includes a full review of your existing policies and spotting any cover gaps. From your bricks and mortar to liability insurance for staff and governors, commercial insurance can include:

This is travel cover for groups of pupils, teachers, parents, and volunteers. It covers accidents and other issues, such as cancellation and lost bags. Learn more about school trip insurance.

This covers legal fees and compensation costs if a third party is ill, injured, or dies, or their property is damaged, and your establishment is held responsible. 

This includes claims from parents, pupils, visitors, and passers-by – but not employees.

If staff are accused of breach of duty or other mistake in their work, this insurance can cover legal defence and compensation costs awarded from a claim. The types of risks it covers include accusations of: 

  • Negligence
  • Misrepresentation
  • Defamation
  • Breach of confidentiality
  • Data loss
  • Intellectual property infringements

This covers the cost if someone you employ has a work-related illness or injury and claims against your establishment. This includes staff, governors, trustees, volunteers, and trainees, full-time and part-time. You need this cover by law if you employ anyone.

This provides protection for key figures such as members of the board, trustees, and officers, if they’re accused of wrongful acts. It covers a range of decisions and actions, including breach of trust or duty and breach of health and safety legislation.

This covers the cost of rebuild, repairs, or replacements after an unexpected event (such as a fire, flood, or storm) damages your building and belongings. Buildings insurance is for the physical structure, and contents insurance can cover anything from sports equipment to office machinery. 

Policies can also cover theft and malicious damage, accidental damage, and building subsidence. 

This covers breakdown of machinery and business interruption, including when moving computer equipment from one site to another. It can also cover statutory inspection services.

This is cover for your vehicles. So that’s coaches, vans, and grounds maintenance and agricultural vehicles, for example. It can also include occasional business use for staff using their own vehicles for work.

If an unexpected event stops your establishment from functioning as usual – such as a fire or a flood – this insurance helps cover lost revenue and expenses until you’re back up and running.

This provides financial protection and incident management if a cyber event – like malware, phishing scams, or hackers – leads to unauthorised access of data and disrupts your operations. To find out more, get in touch.

If you find yourself in need of legal help, such as for contract disputes, this can cover the cost of legal representation and awards of compensation made against you.  

If you lose your core people through illness or death, this can cover the financial impact. If the specified person dies or is diagnosed with a terminal illness, it will pay out a cash lump sum. This can help your organisation recover – whether from lost income or loss of confidence.

Students on campus talking

Protection for your students

Our wellbeing programmes, developed with Health Assured, offer expert tools and support to help students, their teachers, parents, caregivers, and staff thrive.

Pupil assistance programme

Education providers can find it hard to access timely mental health support for pupils – especially out of hours. That’s why we’ve developed a programme with range of resources to choose from, including:

  • Mental health clinical support for pupils aged 11 to 18
  • 24/7 counselling helpline for pupils aged 16 to 18
  • 24/7 caregiver helpline for teachers, pastoral staff, parents, and guardians
  • Certified youth mental health first aid training 
  • Online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) platform

Student assistance programme 

We also offer an extensive programme of student wellbeing services for universities and colleges. Students can talk to qualified counsellors at any time or speak to legal, financial or medical advisors. Translation and interpretation services help make it accessible for all. 

Alongside the helpline and wellbeing support, students can access our Wisdom app. This offers a set of personalised wellbeing tools and features to support their mental and physical health.

We partner with over 100 universities and colleges to provide 24/7 wellbeing and mental health support to more than one million university and college students.

Learn more about our student and pupil wellbeing programmes.

Three pupils walking together and smiling

Protection for your people

Including employee benefits can help show your employees their true value. It can also empower them to look after all aspects of their wellbeing. Ask us about these employee benefits:

  • Employee assistance programme: this includes professional support and advice on personal wellbeing, financial, and legal issues, day or night.
  • Group private medical insurance: this covers medical expenses of employees and helps them receive the treatment or advice they need.
  • Group life assurance: also called ‘death in service’, this pays out a lump sum to beneficiaries if someone dies while employed at your school.
  • Group critical illness cover: this provides your employees with a tax-free lump sum if they are diagnosed with a covered serious illness or condition.
  • Health cash plans: this lets you reduce employees’ health expenses by contributing a percentage to the cost of routine appointments, such as dental and eyecare.
  • Employee dental insurance: with this cover, employees can claim the cost back after routine or emergency treatment by a private or NHS dentist.

Your risk management partner

Keeping on top of your obligations for health and safety, fire safety, and security legislation is non-negotiable. But it can also be complicated and time-consuming.

We'll help you develop and maintain a systematic approach to managing risks. This can be through:

  • Health and safety audits: what you’re managing well and where you could improve, so we can help you to strengthen your safety management system.
  • Physical security audits: we’ll consider perimeter fencing and gates, potential weaknesses in security systems, access control and CCTV.
  • Fire risk assessments: to help you meet legal duties under fire safety legislation.
  • Online compliance tool: manage your estates and assets, statutory reporting, and staff training. Also includes a contractor area so you can track external suppliers.

We can also offer guidance on new building projects based around sustainability, to address associated risks early on.

Learn more about our specialist risk management services.

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