Residential Care Facilities that offer special gatherings, banquets, resident carnivals, or other events may require additional insurance coverage. Special Events insurance is designed to offer protection to the event sponsor, holder, or vendor for bodily injury or property damage. These types of policies are written for the specific location, date, and time of the event. There is often an option to add coverage for a rain date, as well.

Why would an Adult Family Home need this type of policy? Just imagine putting in all of the planning and effort to host a winter banquet for your residents and their families at a local church. It’s a celebration, so you have provided some bubbly for a final toast. A few days later, a guest from the banquet has alleged that the champagne you served at the event caused them to injure themselves. This type of policy is designed for these types of allegations. Another example of why your Assisted Living facility may need this coverage would be if during the preparations of the banquet, someone accidentally banged into a wall causing a hole. The damage to the property would be covered.

Assisted Living Facilities may need to purchase this type of insurance if they are doing any of the following:

• Hosting an event at another venue (Churches, Fire halls, parks, etc.)

Often the venue for your event will require to be listed as an Additional Insured on your event policy. They will usually request proof of insurance with specific wording in order to be in compliance with their requirements to utilize the facility. The venue can be listed as an Additional Insured at no additional cost.

• Serving Liquor (Selling Liquor requires a separate Liquor Liability policy)

As demonstrated in the example above, guests can claim that the host was negligent by providing too much alcohol. Special Event insurance provides coverage for these circumstances.

• Participating as a vendor at an event (a booth/table, fundraising)

Vendors are not covered under the host’s event coverage. If you are participating as a vendor, it is important to consider that visitors to your booth can allege that you caused them to slip and fall or injure themselves. The Special Event policy will provide coverage for this.

Special Event insurance may seem like an unnecessary expense, but it is often those things that we do not expect to happen that cause us our biggest expenses. It is always better to be covered for something that does not happen than it is to have something happen for which you do not have coverage. Contact your insurance professional for any questions about this type of coverage. They should be able to provide a quote for Special Event Insurance within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Just keep in mind that you must purchase Special Event insurance at least a day ahead of the event.