General Liability
The contract-driven foundation Connecticut hospitals and facilities expect to see, commonly at $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate.
General liability coverage
Coverage by State
Connecticut Home Care Insurance
For agencies already operating in Connecticut. 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 Connecticut 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 Connecticut, mid-term when the contract will not wait.
Two Connecticut details are worth a look on an existing program. The homemaker-companion theft bond is a floor rather than a limit, and most agencies are still sitting on the bare minimum with nothing behind it. And workers compensation here has no threshold and reaches out-of-state employers whose staff work in Connecticut.
An agency running seventy-five to a hundred caregivers across Bridgeport, Stamford, Hartford, New Haven or Waterbury has a different problem from a startup, and this page is written for the former.
What Connecticut contracts require, and what happens when yours falls short
On liability the numbers come from your contracts rather than a statute, and they ask more than the law does.
What the contracts typically ask for
Hospitals, facilities 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 pursuing hospital partnerships 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 advance notice of cancellation. Each is an endorsement rather than a sentence on a certificate.
Which track you sit on shapes what a counterparty expects. A Department of Consumer Protection registered homemaker-companion agency is a personal care exposure; a Department of Public Health licensed home health agency is underwritten against a clinical one. 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 additional premium, the fastest path where it is available.
The second is an umbrella. Where a contract wants a total your primary layers cannot reach, excess limits stacked over general liability, auto and employers liability get there quicker and for less than rebuilding the primary underneath.
The third is re-marketing, where a carrier will not extend or the wording sits outside what the form allows. That takes longer, which is the argument for sending contract language when it first appears rather than the week it has to 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. Both are where a placement quietly fails.
Certificates
A certificate is evidence, not coverage; it states only what a policy already does. If a Hartford 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 already on file should carry over rather than be rebuilt each year.
What to report during the year
Adding and removing caregivers does not require a policy change each time, because 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 move from the homemaker-companion track to a Department of Public Health licensed skilled category, which changes the professional liability picture entirely.
- A new office or a material expansion of your service area.
- A rise in the value of client property your caregivers work around, which is a crime and employee dishonesty question rather than a liability one.
- Caregivers regularly working over the New York, Massachusetts or Rhode Island 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 an unwelcome additional premium.
Coverages Connecticut home care agencies carry
The full program, sized to your services, your contracts, and your registration or license track. Each coverage below has a page of its own.
Professional Liability
Clinical claims coverage for Connecticut skilled home health agencies, weighted for the exposure that Department of Public Health licensed, Medicare-certified care carries.
Professional liability coverageWorkers Compensation
Required from your first employee with no threshold under Chapter 568, reaching part-time and seasonal staff, and demanding caregivers be properly classified. Priced on payroll and your experience modifier.
Workers compensation coverageCommercial Auto
Coverage for agency-owned vehicles carrying caregivers across Connecticut's short, high-traffic trips, where a personal policy will not respond.
Commercial auto coverageHired and Non-Owned Auto
The coverage for caregivers driving their own cars for work, an exposure most Connecticut agencies have given how often staff are on the road between clients.
Hired and non-owned autoAbuse and Molestation
Coverage of up to $1 million for allegations that standard liability excludes, essential given caregivers work alone with vulnerable clients and the state mandates background checks.
Abuse and molestation coverageUmbrella Liability
Excess limits stacked on top of your liability and auto, the efficient way to reach the higher totals Connecticut hospital contracts require.
Umbrella liability coverageCyber Liability
Breach response for the protected health information your agency holds, including notification, ransomware, and regulatory defense.
Cyber liability coverageConnecticut's theft bond also points to crime and employee-dishonesty coverage, which we build alongside the bond to respond to employee theft beyond the $10,000 minimum.
Provider types we insure in Connecticut
Home Health Agencies
Connecticut Home Health Care Agencies and Home Health Aide Agencies, licensed by the Department of Public Health to deliver skilled care under a plan of care.
Home health agency insuranceHome Care Agencies
Connecticut Homemaker-Companion Agencies registered with Consumer Protection, delivering non-skilled personal care, homemaker, and companion services.
Home care agency insuranceSenior Care Providers
Agencies serving Connecticut's large and fast-aging senior population, weighted for wandering, falls, and abuse exposure.
Senior care coveragePrivate Duty Nursing
Skilled, high-acuity care that drives professional liability limits higher, often backed by an umbrella.
Private duty nursing coverageGroup Home Care
Residential group homes combining a facility with hands-on care, with premises and property exposure.
Group home care coverageConnecticut workers compensation, the theft bond and screening
Connecticut is unusual in that its non-medical rules name insurance directly, so an operating agency here has three things to check rather than one.
Workers compensation, with no threshold and a long reach
Coverage is governed by Chapter 568 of the Connecticut General Statutes and enforced by the Connecticut Workers' Compensation Commission, and it is required from the first employee. Part-time, full-time and seasonal workers all count, and the requirement reaches out-of-state businesses whose staff work in Connecticut, which catches agencies running caregivers over the line from New York, Massachusetts or Rhode Island.
The only narrow exception is a household employee working fewer than 26 hours a week, which does not describe an agency's own caregivers. Owners can opt out for themselves, meaning sole proprietors, partners, LLC members and corporate officers may elect out, but that election covers only the owner and does nothing for the staff. Read how the coverage works on our workers compensation page.
Going without is expensive. Operating uninsured can bring a stop-work order, fines starting at $250 per worker for each day the business is uninsured, and, for willful non-compliance, a Class D felony with penalties up to $50,000.
The theft bond is a floor, not a limit
This is the Connecticut item most worth revisiting on an established book. Every Homemaker-Companion Agency must maintain a surety bond of at least $10,000 that specifically covers theft by an employee from a client. The Department of Consumer Protection treats that as a minimum and advises agencies to talk to their insurer about additional coverage.
Take that advice seriously at your size. A single dishonest employee can steal well past the bond limit from a client's home, and once the bond is exhausted the rest lands on the agency. Crime and employee dishonesty coverage sits alongside the bond and answers the part it does not reach, so a loss does not turn into an out-of-pocket settlement. An agency running a hundred caregivers in wealthy Fairfield County households on a bare statutory bond is carrying that difference itself.
Screening reaches further than your permanent hires
Connecticut requires homemaker-companion agencies to run comprehensive background checks on all prospective workers, and the rule reaches temporary, pool and independent-contractor staff, not only permanent hires. That is a compliance duty, and it is also a risk-management one, because the same caregivers it screens work alone with vulnerable clients.
Screening lowers the odds of a bad hire. It does not remove the exposure to an allegation, which is why the background-check duty and sexual abuse and molestation coverage belong together in a Connecticut program, and why payers here increasingly name that coverage rather than assume it.
Connecticut licensing and regulatory context
Short version, because you already hold your registration or licence. It earns space because Connecticut splits home care across two regulators and carriers underwrite against which one you answer to.
A non-medical agency operates as a Homemaker-Companion Agency and registers with the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection rather than the health department, renewing annually. The framing is deliberate: the state treats homemaker and companion services as a consumer transaction to be protected, which is why the rules that come with it centre on bonding, background checks and honest dealing with clients.
Skilled care runs on a separate track. The Connecticut Department of Public Health licenses Home Health Care Agencies and Home Health Aide Agencies, the agencies delivering skilled nursing and clinical care, and it does not license homemaker-companion agencies at all. So the line between medical and non-medical care is also the line between two different regulators, and moving across it is entry into a different regime rather than an expansion of what you hold.
Medicare, Medicaid and what actually sets your limits
Connecticut funds home and community-based care for eligible seniors through the Connecticut Home Care Program for Elders, which helps older residents stay in their own homes instead of moving into a nursing home. For an agency that is where a meaningful share of the state's publicly funded long-term care in the home is authorized and paid.
The direction of the money matters as much as the programme. Connecticut has been shifting long-term care spending away from nursing homes and toward home and community-based care, and in one of the oldest states in the country that is a durable tailwind rather than a passing one.
Medicare comes in where an agency provides short-term skilled home health under a plan of care, which in Connecticut is the Department of Public Health licensed track. That work raises the stakes on documentation and on professional liability. What sets your limits, though, is neither programme: it is the hospitals, facilities 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.
The Connecticut home care market
Connecticut is a demographics story before it is anything else. The state has about 3.68 million residents, and roughly one in five, close to 714,000 people, are 65 or older, a share above the national average. Around a quarter of the state is 60 or older.
It is also old at the top of the age range, ranking among the oldest states by median age and near the top nationally in residents 85 and older, the group needing the most hands-on help to stay at home. The 65-plus population is projected to grow sharply through 2040 while the working-age population barely grows, which points to demand that keeps climbing against a labor pool that does not.
This is a wealthy, densely populated state wedged into the corridor between New York City and Boston, and that changes the shape of the work. The largest markets are Bridgeport-Stamford, Hartford, New Haven and Waterbury, where clients, caregivers and referral partners sit close together. Caregivers make frequent short trips through heavy traffic rather than long drives between far-flung clients, so the exposure is accident frequency across many small journeys rather than hours behind the wheel.
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. Cross-border work is ordinary in a state this size. If your caregivers work beyond Connecticut, the program has to satisfy each state they enter, and the full list is on our coverage by state hub.
Connecticut resources for home care providers
These are the Connecticut bodies that shape how home care operates, for registration, licensing, workers compensation, and industry advocacy. We name them so you know where each requirement comes from.
- Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, which registers Homemaker-Companion Agencies and requires the surety bond covering employee theft from clients.
- Connecticut Department of Public Health, which licenses skilled Home Health Care Agencies and Home Health Aide Agencies and does not license homemaker-companion agencies.
- Connecticut Workers' Compensation Commission, which enforces the workers compensation requirement under Chapter 568 of the Connecticut General Statutes.
- Connecticut Association for Healthcare at Home, the state home care and hospice trade association representing agencies through advocacy.
- National Association for Home Care and Hospice, for national home care standards and guidance.
Why Connecticut agencies choose HCBI
We work with agencies already running, and their problems are contract problems.
A health system raises its required 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 theft from a client's home runs past a statutory bond and the balance lands on the agency. That is why we ask for the insurance exhibit rather than a summary.
On Connecticut specifically, we treat the $10,000 theft bond as the floor the Department of Consumer Protection says it is, and we look at what sits behind it, because at seventy-five to a hundred caregivers a single dishonest employee can exhaust it and leave the rest with you. We also check that the abuse and molestation limit matches a state that wrote a comprehensive screening duty into the registration itself.
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 short corridor trips, umbrella limits to reach what your contracts demand, cyber, and abuse and molestation coverage of up to $1 million. That reach is backed by working relationships across the home care and healthcare industry, including CareerStaff Unlimited and Genesis Healthcare in staffing, HOMELINK in the medical equipment and home care network space, and Bright Horizons Family Solutions on the family care side.
Connecticut home care insurance FAQ
Specific answers for agencies operating under Connecticut 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, because the required wording matters as much as the number.
The certificate is quick. What takes time is anything it has to evidence that your policy does not yet do: additional insured status for a named health system, 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 does not require a policy change. What does need reporting is a change in what the agency does: a move between the homemaker-companion and skilled tracks, a new office or territory, agency-owned vehicles, or regular work over a state line.
Yes, from the first employee, with no threshold. Coverage is governed by Chapter 568 of the Connecticut General Statutes and enforced by the Connecticut Workers' Compensation Commission. Part-time, full-time and seasonal workers all count, and the requirement reaches out-of-state businesses whose staff work in Connecticut. The only narrow exception is a household employee working fewer than 26 hours a week, which does not describe an agency's own caregivers. Owners can elect out for themselves, but that election covers only the owner and does nothing for the staff.
It is a floor rather than a limit, and the state says so. Every Homemaker-Companion Agency must maintain a surety bond of at least $10,000 specifically covering theft by an employee from a client, and the Department of Consumer Protection treats that as a minimum and advises agencies to talk to their insurer about additional coverage. A single dishonest employee can steal well past the bond limit from a client's home, and once the bond is exhausted the rest lands on the agency. Crime and employee dishonesty coverage sits alongside the bond and answers the part it does not reach.
Yes, and the two belong together. Connecticut requires homemaker-companion agencies to run comprehensive background checks on all prospective workers, reaching temporary, pool and independent-contractor staff rather than only permanent hires. Screening lowers the odds of a bad hire, but it does not remove the exposure to an allegation, and the same caregivers it screens work alone with vulnerable clients. Standard liability excludes those allegations, and Connecticut payers increasingly name the coverage rather than assume it.
Operating uninsured can bring a stop-work order, fines starting at $250 per worker for each day the business is uninsured, and, for willful non-compliance, a Class D felony with penalties up to $50,000. For an agency running caregivers, the stop-work order alone ends the revenue while it stands.
Loss runs for the last five years, current declarations pages for every line, payroll by class, caregiver headcount, the counties you serve, and the insurance exhibits from your largest contracts. Start sixty to ninety days out. A non-renewal shortens the list of carriers, and lead time buys the options back.
Send us the contract and we will build to it
Tell us your payroll and caregiver count, whether you hold a Consumer Protection registration or a Public Health licence, and what sits behind your theft bond, 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 Connecticut. There is no obligation.