General Liability
The foundation Colorado hospitals and health systems expect, commonly at $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate.
General liability coverage
Coverage by State
Colorado Home Care Insurance
For agencies already operating in Colorado. If a hospital, health system or payer has handed you a contract demanding limits your current policy cannot reach, that is a solvable problem, and it does not have to wait for your renewal date.
If you already run a Colorado home care agency
Here is the short answer. When a contract demands limits your policy cannot reach, the fix is general liability at the limit the contract names, professional liability sized to the care you deliver, an umbrella behind both, and certificates carrying the additional insured and waiver wording specified. We place that through exclusive carrier programs that write home care in Colorado, mid-term when the contract will not wait.
Two Colorado details are worth a look on an existing program. Your licence class, A or B, is the frame a carrier underwrites against, and growth here usually means a class change rather than a second licence. And workers compensation reaches family members on the payroll, which owners routinely assume it does not.
An agency running seventy-five to a hundred caregivers across Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins or the mountain communities has a different problem from a startup, and this page is written for the former.
What Colorado contracts require, and what happens when yours falls short
On liability the numbers come from your contracts, and they ask more than the law does.
What the contracts typically ask for
Hospitals, health systems and payers usually require general liability at $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate. Professional liability is expected of agencies delivering skilled care. Workers compensation at statutory limits with employers liability behind it. Auto liability for agency vehicles and caregivers driving their own. Abuse and molestation coverage, increasingly named rather than assumed. And an umbrella, which agencies working health system partnerships along the Front Range often need.
Wording matters as much as the number. Contracts routinely ask for additional insured status, a waiver of subrogation, primary and non-contributory response, and notice of cancellation. Each is an endorsement rather than a line on a certificate.
Your licence class shapes what a counterparty expects. A Class A agency running skilled work is expected to carry professional liability at meaningful limits; a Class B book is a personal care exposure. Say which you hold when you send the exhibit, because it changes what we build.
When the contract asks for more than you carry
The first route is endorsement. The incumbent carrier will sometimes raise a limit or add required wording mid-term for extra premium, the fastest path where available.
The second is an umbrella. Where a contract wants a total your primary layers cannot reach, excess limits over general liability, auto and employers liability get there quicker and cheaper than rebuilding the primary.
The third is re-marketing, where a carrier will not extend or the wording sits outside the form. That takes longer, which is the argument for sending contract language when it appears rather than the week it must be signed.
Certificates of insurance and the rest of the operating year
For a running agency the broker relationship is mostly certificates and mid-term changes, and both are where a placement quietly fails.
Certificates
A certificate is evidence, not coverage; it states only what a policy does. If a Front Range health system requires additional insured status and your policy carries no such endorsement, no certificate can create it. The delay agencies feel there is an underwriter deciding, not paperwork.
So the habit that helps: when a new client, facility or payer sends paperwork, send us the requirements immediately. Certificates on file should carry over rather than be rebuilt each year.
What to report during the year
Adding and removing caregivers does not need a policy change each time: the program is rated on payroll and headcount and trued up at audit. What needs reporting is a change in the agency's shape.
- A change of licence class from B to A, which adds licensed clinical staff and a heavier professional liability picture.
- A new office, or a move into mountain or eastern plains counties where the driving profile changes entirely.
- A family member joining the payroll, because Colorado counts them as employees for workers compensation.
- Caregivers regularly working over the New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming or Utah line.
- Agency-owned vehicles, which need commercial auto rather than a caregiver reimbursement arrangement.
- An acquisition, a new entity or a change of ownership, and any incident that could become a claim, reported when it happens rather than when it is served.
The payroll audit at the end of the term is worth preparing for. Records split properly by class keep it from producing a surprise premium.
Coverages Colorado home care agencies carry
The full program, sized to your license class, contracts, and driving. Each coverage has a page of its own.
Professional Liability
Clinical claims coverage weighted for Class A agencies, where licensed nurses, therapy and respiratory professionals deliver skilled healthcare service.
Professional liability coverageWorkers Compensation
Required from one or more employees and maintained at all times, with family counted and owners treated as employees by default. Priced on payroll and your experience modifier.
Workers compensation coverageCommercial Auto
Coverage for agency-owned vehicles carrying caregivers through Front Range traffic and across mountain and plains routes, where a personal policy will not respond.
Commercial auto coverageHired and Non-Owned Auto
For caregivers driving their own cars for work, a short metro run or a long mountain route alike, an exposure most Colorado agencies carry.
Hired and non-owned autoAbuse and Molestation
Coverage of up to $1 million for allegations standard liability excludes, essential given caregivers work alone with vulnerable clients inside their homes.
Abuse and molestation coverageUmbrella Liability
Excess limits stacked on your liability and auto, the efficient way to reach the totals Front Range health system contracts require.
Umbrella liability coverageCyber Liability
Breach response for the protected health information your agency holds: notification, ransomware, regulatory defense.
Cyber liability coverageProperty and Business Owners Policy
Cover for the office, its contents, and business interruption after a loss, sized to the footprint you actually run.
Home care agency insuranceProvider types we insure in Colorado
Home Care Agencies
Class B agencies providing only personal care services, the non-medical model most Colorado operators build on.
Home care agency insuranceHome Health Agencies
Class A agencies delivering skilled healthcare service through licensed medical professionals, and able to provide personal care alongside it.
Home health agency insurancePersonal Care Services
Bathing, dressing, grooming, and daily living support, the work a Class B license is built around.
Personal care services coverageSenior Care Providers
Agencies serving the roughly 943,000 Colorado residents aged 65 and older, weighted for wandering, falls, and abuse.
Senior care coveragePrivate Duty Nursing
Skilled, high-acuity care that drives professional liability limits higher, often with an umbrella behind it.
Private duty nursing coverageGroup Home Care
Residential group homes combining a facility with hands-on care, carrying premises and property exposure.
Group home care coverageColorado workers compensation for home care agencies
Colorado's rule has no arithmetic in it, and it reaches further than most states on who counts.
One or more employees, including family
The Division of Workers' Compensation states that if you have one or more employees working for you in Colorado, you must have workers compensation insurance and maintain it at all times. It goes further than most states on who counts: the Division states that this applies to all employers, regardless of whether the employees are part-time, full-time, or family members. A spouse handling scheduling and an adult child picking up weekend shifts are employees for this purpose, and owners routinely assume otherwise. Read how the coverage works on our workers compensation page.
Owners are in by default and have to opt out on paper
Colorado reverses the usual assumption. The Division states that corporate officers and members of LLCs are considered employees of the company, and that you must either obtain workers compensation coverage for yourself or complete a form indicating you wish to reject that coverage. So the default is in, not out, and rejection is an affirmative filing rather than a silence. Whichever you choose, it applies to you personally and does nothing for the caregivers on your schedule.
The domestic worker exemption is narrower than it sounds
This is the Colorado point worth reading twice, because the label misleads people who have worked in other states. The Division describes the exemption as covering domestic workers, including nannies and au pairs, who work less than 40 hours per week and less than five days a week. Both limits have to be met.
The Division publishes its own worked example: a domestic worker who works three hours per day, five days a week would be considered an employee, requiring workers compensation. Fifteen hours is nowhere near 40, and the person is still an employee, because five days breaks the second limit. A caregiver on a normal weekday schedule falls outside this exemption on the day count alone.
What going uninsured costs
Two consequences run in parallel. The Division states that you can be fined up to $500 for every day you are uninsured, and that your business may also be shut down. A daily fine compounds fast for an agency that let coverage lapse for a season, and a shutdown ends the revenue while it runs.
The second reaches your balance sheet through the claim itself. If a worker is injured while you are uninsured, the Division states that you will have to pay for the claim yourself and an additional penalty totaling 25 percent of the injured worker's benefits. You do not avoid the claim by being uninsured, you take it on personally with a surcharge on top.
Colorado licensing and regulatory context
Short version, because you already hold your licence. It earns space because which class you hold is the frame a carrier underwrites against.
Home care is licensed by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and skilled and non-medical work sit under the same Home Care Agency licence rather than in separate regimes, split by class. Class B covers an agency providing only personal care services, and CDPHE is explicit that a Class B agency shall not provide any skilled healthcare service. Class A covers skilled healthcare services provided by licensed medical professionals, including nurses, certified nursing assistants and licensed therapy and respiratory professionals, and a Class A agency may also provide personal care.
Read the Class B wording again, because it is a prohibition rather than a description. The governing statutes are C.R.S. 25-27.5-103 and 25-27.5-104, and the standards sit in 6 CCR 1011-1, with Chapter 2 carrying general licensure standards and Chapter 26 the home care agency rules. An operator reading only Chapter 26 is reading half of what applies. CDPHE also regulates home care placement agencies as a separate category, so if that is your model, tell us.
Medicare, Medicaid and what actually sets your limits
Colorado Medicaid is administered by the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. For an agency that funding is what turns an aging population into an actual client pipeline, and for many Class B operators it is the larger half of the book.
Medicare comes in separately, covering short-term skilled home health under a plan of care. That work sits on the Class A side of the licence by definition, because it involves licensed medical professionals, and it raises the stakes on documentation and on professional liability. The two sides carry different exposures and different licence classes, so a program treating them as one thing tends to be wrong about both.
What sets your limits is neither programme. It is the hospitals, health systems and payers you contract with, which is why we ask to see the contract language rather than guessing. If your agency runs skilled care, our home health agency insurance page covers how that program is built. For the non-medical side, see personal care services.
The Colorado home care market
Colorado has about 5.96 million residents, roughly 943,000 of them 65 or older, close to 16.1 percent of the civilian population. That share is lower than in most states, which changes the shape of the opportunity rather than the size of it.
Where those people live is the operating fact. Denver and its surrounding area holds about 3.05 million, Colorado Springs about 778,000, Fort Collins and Loveland about 375,000, and Greeley about 370,000, with Pueblo behind them. Those four largest metros together account for roughly 77 percent of the state population, and all sit on the Front Range corridor.
Everything else is mountain and eastern plains, where the distances are long and the weather decides how long. A caregiver working the corridor makes short trips through heavy traffic, where the exposure is accident frequency. A caregiver covering mountain communities drives shorter distances that take far longer, on roads that change character with the season. Because most agencies concentrate on the Front Range and take clients outward from it, the driving stretches without the office moving.
Agency-owned vehicles need commercial auto, and caregivers using their own cars create a hired and non-owned auto exposure a personal policy will not cover on a work trip. If your caregivers work beyond Colorado, the program has to satisfy each state they enter. Operators working the southern border can read our New Mexico and Oklahoma pages, and the full list is on our coverage by state hub.
Colorado resources for home care providers
These are the bodies that shape how home care operates in Colorado, so you know where each requirement comes from.
- Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which licenses Class A and Class B Home Care Agencies under C.R.S. 25-27.5-103 and 25-27.5-104 and regulates home care placement agencies separately.
- Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Division of Workers' Compensation, which administers the coverage requirement, the owner rejection form, and the penalties.
- Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, the state Medicaid agency.
- Home Care Association of America, Colorado chapter, the state chapter of the national private duty home care association.
- National Association for Home Care and Hospice, for national home care standards and guidance.
Why Colorado agencies choose HCBI
We work with agencies already running, and their problems are contract problems.
A health system raises its limits at renewal. A payer adds abuse and molestation as a named requirement. A facility wants additional insured status and primary and non-contributory wording your form does not carry. A caregiver crash on an icy mountain route exposes how little a personal auto policy does on a work trip. That is why we ask for the insurance exhibit rather than a summary.
On Colorado specifically, we read the domestic worker exemption as written rather than as labelled. It requires under 40 hours a week AND under five days a week, both limits, and the Division's own worked example shows a fifteen-hour week still counting as employment because five days breaks the second limit. We also check the two things owners assume wrongly: family members on the payroll are employees here, and officers and LLC members are in by default unless a rejection form has actually been filed.
We place coverage through exclusive carrier programs that write home care risks, and we coordinate the whole program: general liability, professional liability, workers compensation, commercial and hired and non-owned auto for corridor traffic and mountain routes alike, umbrella limits to reach what your contracts demand, cyber, and abuse and molestation coverage of up to $1 million. That reach is backed by relationships across the home care and healthcare industry, including CareerStaff Unlimited and Genesis Healthcare in staffing, HOMELINK in medical equipment and home care networks, and Bright Horizons Family Solutions on the family care side.
Colorado home care insurance FAQ
Answers for agencies operating under Colorado rules.
Usually, and usually before renewal. The underlying general liability limit can sometimes be raised by endorsement. More often an umbrella stacked over general liability, auto and employers liability reaches the required total faster and for less than rebuilding the primary program. Where the carrier will not extend, the program is re-marketed. Send us the insurance exhibit rather than a summary; the wording matters as much as the number.
The certificate is quick. What takes time is anything it must evidence that your policy does not yet do: additional insured status, a waiver of subrogation, primary and non-contributory wording, or a notice of cancellation. Those are endorsements, not lines typed onto a form. Send us contract wording when it first arrives, not on the day the certificate is due.
Not person by person. The program is rated on payroll and headcount estimates and trued up at audit, so ordinary turnover needs no policy change. What does need reporting is a change in what the agency does: a change of licence class, a new office or territory, a family member joining the payroll, agency-owned vehicles, or regular work over a state line.
From one employee, with no threshold. The Division of Workers' Compensation states that if you have one or more employees working for you in Colorado you must have workers compensation insurance and maintain it at all times, and that this applies to all employers regardless of whether the employees are part-time, full-time, or family members. That last one catches owners out: a spouse handling scheduling and an adult child on weekend shifts are employees for this purpose.
In by default, which reverses the usual assumption. The Division states that corporate officers and members of LLCs are considered employees of the company, and that you must either obtain workers compensation coverage for yourself or complete a form indicating you wish to reject that coverage. Rejection is an affirmative filing rather than a silence, so check that the form was actually filed. Either way it applies to you personally and does nothing for the caregivers on your schedule.
Almost certainly not, and the label misleads people who have worked in other states. The Division describes it as covering domestic workers, including nannies and au pairs, who work less than 40 hours per week and less than five days a week. Both limits have to be met. The Division publishes its own example: a domestic worker working three hours per day, five days a week is an employee requiring workers compensation. Fifteen hours is nowhere near 40, but five days breaks the second limit, so a caregiver on a normal weekday schedule falls outside the exemption on the day count alone.
Two things at once. The Division states you can be fined up to $500 for every day you are uninsured and that your business may also be shut down. Then there is the claim itself: if a worker is injured while you are uninsured, you will have to pay for the claim yourself plus an additional penalty totaling 25 percent of the injured worker's benefits. You do not avoid the claim by being uninsured, you take it on personally with a surcharge on top.
It is the frame a carrier underwrites against, so it is the first thing we ask. Home care is licensed by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment under one Home Care Agency licence split into two classes. Class B covers personal care only, and CDPHE is explicit that a Class B agency shall not provide any skilled healthcare service. Class A covers skilled services delivered by licensed medical professionals and may also include personal care. The statutes are C.R.S. 25-27.5-103 and 25-27.5-104, with standards at 6 CCR 1011-1, Chapters 2 and 26.
Loss runs for the last five years, declarations pages for every line, payroll by class, caregiver headcount, the counties you serve, and the exhibits from your largest contracts. Start sixty to ninety days out. A non-renewal shortens the carrier list, and lead time buys the options back.
Send us the contract and we will build to it
Tell us your payroll and caregiver count, which licence class you hold, how far your routes run off the Front Range, and what your largest contract requires. If a limit needs raising before your renewal date, say so and we will start there. A specialist will build the program through exclusive carriers that write home care in Colorado. There is no obligation.