What is an excess period?
An excess is the 'waiting period' before benefit payments start. For example, if a school selects a 5 day excess for teachers benefit, payments will not start until the 6th working day of absence.
How do I select an excess for my policy?
You can choose an excess between 0 - 25 days. The excess does affect the premium; higher excesses provide lower cost premiums and lower excesses cost more!
Some schools select an excess based on the number of days they are able provide staff cover internally without having to employ supply staff.
Larger schools, with more floating staff available to provide classroom cover, often opt for a longer excess period, e.g. 10 days. Smaller schools often prefer the security of a lower excess period, e.g. 3 days.
Do I have to cover all my staff?
No. However, it is compulsory to cover all full time teachers unless your school is part of a special 'support staff only' Local Authority scheme administered by BEST.
You can select other categories of staff to cover, however you must then cover all staff within that specified category.
For example, you could choose to cover all part-time teaching staff who are a 0.5 FTE or more. You could also opt to exclude from cover headteachers, deputy heads or senior managers because they do not have teaching responsibilities.
What other categories of staff can I cover?
We can provide cover for up to four additional staff categories, including Administrators, Support Staff, Teaching Assistants, Caretakers, and Nursery Nurses.
How do I decide what daily benefit is appropriate for my staff categories?
You can select different daily benefits for each category of staff. Selecting an appropriate daily benefit is entirely dependent on how your school wishes to manage their internal budgets and their attitude towards absence risks.
The higher the daily benefit selected the higher the insurance premium paid. Schools can choose a daily benefit from between £10 - £200. Some schools like to buy sufficient cover to pay for the whole cost of supply cover.
However, many schools opt to cover only a proportion of the supply costs and retain a contingency reserve internally to cover any additional supply costs.
Do I have to employ supply staff to cover absence in order to receive a daily benefit payment?
No. You do not have to employ a supply teacher to receive your daily benefit payment. Schools can choose to spend their daily benefit on supply cover or utilise the money for other purposes.
How can I be sure that I am achieving best value?
We provide purchasing guidance and a detailed checklist to help schools ensure they achieve best value when purchasing staff absence insurance.
This checklist can be read in the staff absence insurance Summary of Cover document.
Click here to read the Summary of Cover document.
We also advise schools to read the best value guidance issued by the DCSF.
Click here to read this guidance on the DCSF website.
What is the benefit of taking out maternity cover and what does maternity cover include?
Maternity leave cover helps schools to cover the cost of staff absence as a result of maternity leave.
Our maternity leave cover is designed to 'top up' the Statutory Maternity Pay all women in the UK are entitled to receive during their 39 weeks maternity leave.
It assists schools financially helping them meet their contractual obligations. Contractually, schools provide the following maternity leave allowances to employees:
- First four weeks at full pay
- Subsequent two weeks at 90% pay
- Then 12 weeks of ½ pay plus Statutory Maternity Pay
- 21 weeks at SMP only
- 13 weeks’ unpaid leave can also be taken
We offer schools various different cover options to help them 'top-up' statutory maternity leave payments. For more information, please contact our insurance consultants on free phone 0800 389 2028.
Is the insurance contract annual?
No. We offer continuity of cover at each renewal. Continuity of cover means we continue to pay all ongoing claims when you renew with us, right up to the maximum benefit period.
In contrast, annual policies cease to pay any ongoing claims at renewal even when you renew your policy with the existing provider.
Some annual policies allow schools to purchase extensions in cover to protect against any 'potential' ongoing claims at renewal but this carries an additional premium charge. We do not make any such additional charges.