Business Insurance Solutions

Public Entities & Municipalities

Whether large or small, public entities are exposed to many different types of risks. Whether it is maintaining town properties, streets and roads, protecting your community with your police and fire departments, or running recreational programs for youth and vulnerable populations, there countless exposures to consider.  Hickok and Boardman has a deep history of working with all sizes of public entities and can craft an insurance an risk management program to protect the interests of the town and all of its residents and employees.

Property: Cities and towns often have a diverse real estate portfolio with high-value historic buildings or courthouses, water/sewer plants or other unique structures.  Property coverage ranges from the structures themselves to equipment breakdown, inland marine, ocean marine and personal property.

General Liability: Covers third-party bodily injury, property damage personal injury and advertising injury related to premises and operational exposures.  Operational exposures could include the maintenance of streets and roads, special events, first responders, failure to supply (e.g., water and electricity.)

Automobile Liability and Physical Damage: Public entities often have large, diverse fleets that  perform high hazard activities than your typical commercial exposure.  Whether fire trucks, police cars, ambulances, road maintenance vehicles, utility trucks and more; the coverage needs can vary widely from town to town.

Workers’ Compensation: Activities of public entity staff range from low to high hazard.  Whether on the town administrative staff, the department of public works or law enforcement, workers compensation covers costs associated with work-related injury or illness.

Excess Liability/Umbrella:  A policy designed to provide protection against catastrophic losses. It is generally written over various primary liability policies, such as the general liability, professional liability, auto liability, and employers liability coverage.

Crime:  This coverage offers protection against employee theft, loss of money and securities, and forgery and alteration.

Cyber Liability: Given the wide range of information public entities maintain, they can be prime targets for cyber criminals. This coverage protects the entity’s liability for a data breach involving sensitive information, such as social security numbers and tax information.  Cyber also provides a host of coverages to protect against extortion, social engineering losses and other first party losses.

Law Enforcement Legal Liability:  Law Enforcement personnel can be accused of wrongful acts during their law enforcement activities, resulting in lawsuits.   This provides coverage for situations involving alleged bodily injury, personal injury, or property damage.

Public Entity Management Liability: This coverage is also known as public officials’ coverage. This provides coverage to cities, towns, counties and their employees who face allegations of wrongful acts arising from their governance or operational activities.

Employment Practices Liability:  This provides coverage for lawsuits stemming from employment-related and third-party situations such as wrongful termination, harassment, discrimination, retaliation, unfair discipline, wrongful hiring, wrongful demotion, defamation, libel, slander disparagement or invasion of privacy.

Physical and Sexual Abuse: Many cities and towns operate recreational programs for their youth and elderly populations. This protects against losses related to lawsuits arising from claims of physical and/or sexual abuse. This abuse can include molestation, inappropriate touching, and more.

Public Officials Bond: Public officials that handle public funds need this type of surety bond to guarantee that elected officials and those with financial access comply with government rules and regulations.

Volunteer Accident Insurance:  Cities and towns have active volunteer communities, but volunteers are not covered by most workers compensation policies. This coverage provides excess accident protection to the health benefits of those participating in in sponsored town activities.  If no other health coverage exists, these benefits would be primary.

Site Pollution Liability:  This coverage provides environmental damage, property damage & bodily injury coverage for pollution incidents located on, under or migrating from property you own, operate, lease, or manage.

Government Immunity and Statutory Tort Caps:  Government immunity is a legal doctrine that shields a public entity from lawsuits for tort-based claims.  The protections within immunity vary from state to state.