Insurance For A Church Bus
When looking for affordable insurance for a church bus, it is important to not skimp on your insurance coverages. Churches come in all shapes and sizes, and your church insurance needs to be able to adjust with you. If your church owns a bus or a fleet of buses, you will need an affordable option that doesn’t sacrifice coverage.
The more buses your church owns, the more important the price you pay towards insurance premiums becomes even more important.
When reviewing your churches general liability insurance, it is also important to analyze the total cost of all of your insurance policies.
Due to the size of a bus, it is important that you carry enough liability protection. We typically recommend for our church partners to obtain an umbrella policy along with the churches business auto insurance policy.
We understand churches love to head off on local trips and on a mission trip that could take them out of the country.
It is important for your churches bus insurance coverage provides all of the needed coverages based on how you intend to use your vehicles.
How Much Insurance Does our Church Need for our Bus
As your Church Insurance Agents we always struggle in answering this question. The reason is due to the fact that no one ever knows, how much insurance do we really need. Insurance for a church bus is no different than trying to figure out the risk exposure of a slip and fall claim.
We tell our church clients, how much insurance would make you feel more comfortable so you can sleep at night.
The answer to this question, we will typically turn towards the overall cost of insurance. How much will it cost for a one million dollar umbrella policy vs a three million or five million dollar umbrella policy.
Once you know the answers to these insurance limits, your church board members can decide how much money they want to put towards their insurance cost.
We typically suggest budgeting around $1,000 per million for an umbrella policy. There are times it will be as low as $500 and other times that the cost will be closer to $1,500. It all depends on the overall church risk exposure.
How Much Does Church Bus Insurance Cost?
When a church is looking to buy a new or used bus, they need to consider the church insurance costs related to owning a church bus.
The cost of church bus insurance will be based on your current location, the amount your church bus is worth, how frequently you drive the bus, the distance the church bus is driven away from the church property, the deductible amount, and the liability amount included with your church bus insurance.
If your church owns more than one bus or uses it to transport school kids for your private school, this can also increase the overall cost of a business auto insurance policy for churches.
When included with your church insurance program, it would be safe to say that the cost for church bus insurance will be around $1,000 to $2,500 per bus. Contact one of our church insurance agents to help you obtain a church insurance quote.
Have Proper Guidelines in Place Related to Your Insurance for a Church Bus
Church Property Insurance Companies, want to make sure your church has specific church bus policies and procedures in place, before they are willing to provide insurance for a church bus. Following are some of the guidelines, church insurance companies will want your organization to have in place.
- Specific hiring practices
- Age restrictions for your bus driver’s
- Proper licenses of all bus drivers
- Bus Drivers with no tickets
- Bus Drivers with no accidents
- Vehicle maintenance program
- Annual DMV records check
As insurance companies are taking on tremendous risk related to insurance for a bus, they want to make sure church is taking all of the needed precautions. As a bus can hold a large number of individuals, a single bus accident, can require a large insurance payout.
It is important that churches only allow experienced drivers with experience driving buses, to operate their church bus.
It is also important to provide workers’ compensation insurance that covers your bus drivers. Church insurance providers want to know, your bus drivers are employees of the church organization. This is another way of reducing the possibility that a non experienced driver is operating the bus.
Employees are typically held to a higher standard than a church volunteer. This is one of the reasons insurance companies, want to limit who is an approved bus driver.
Effective Bus Management Program
As your church evaluates their insurance, the church insurance company wants to know you have an effective bus maintenance program that is being followed. An effective maintenance program will include the following:
VEHICLE SELF-INSPECTION CHECKLIST COMPLETED PRIOR TO EACH OPERATION
TRAIN DRIVERS IN BUS SAFETY
CREATE WRITTEN POLICIES
MONITOR DRIVER BEHAVIOR
Proper Church Bus Maintenance
When you are considering insurance for a church bus, it is vitally important to have a bus management program which includes implementing proper bus maintaining.
Conducting preventative service and repairs on a set schedule, can help your church avoid unnecessary breakdowns when your drivers are on the road with your church members.
The insurance provider will includes question in their application related towards insurance for a church bus. Before they are willing to provide the needed insurance coverages, they want to know churches are following all of the best practices.
Church Bus Insurance Agency
Integrity Now Insurance Brokers, is here to help you obtain the needed insurance for a church bus. As a full service church insurance brokers we help churches with all of their insurance needs.
We have helped thousands of churches with their churches insurance to include: general liability insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, business auto insurance, abuse and molestation insurance for churches, directors and officers insurance, and more.
We want to be your easy button when it comes to your ministry insurance.
We are centrally located in California and offer our services throughout the US. Recent states we have helped write church insurance for are Arizona, California, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, and Washington.
Feel free to reach out to us either by phone or through our online church insurance quote form.
