How Excess Carriers Can Help Schools Manage Emerging Risks

Schools face a growing list of safety concerns, ranging from staff burnout, behavioral challenges, and sexual misconduct. These risks can disrupt learning environments, impact staff well-being, and, in severe cases, result in costly claims.

“There are mounting pressures and expectations for schools to protect both students and the staff in addition to providing education,” said Sonya Luisoni, Senior Risk Control Manager at Safety National. “A school district’s insurance carrier can help meet those demands by offering or recommending valuable solutions. Since carriers often insure many school districts, they can leverage this perspective to offer insights into what other districts are implementing to address the same challenges.”

Here, we explore common safety concerns facing schools today and how excess insurance carriers can partner with schools to mitigate these risks.

Educator Burnout and Mental Stress

Overtasked teachers and student behavioral challenges are significant obstacles facing school districts. Educators are often expected to manage complex and emotionally charged situations.

While carriers cannot fill vacant teaching positions, they can help schools feel more prepared by:

• Connecting schools with mental health and wellness resources through trusted specialty vendors and third-party administrators.
• Providing or recommending trauma-informed or crisis de-escalation training to help teachers identify, understand, and appropriately respond to students under stress.
• Offering training across multiple risk levels, helping educators prepare for situations ranging from minor disruptions to high-risk crises.

These resources aim to reduce emotional strain by giving educators tools to respond confidently and carefully, improving safety while supporting retention and morale.

Violence in Schools

Violence stemming from student behavioral outbursts, particularly in special education environments, poses a risk of physical injury and trauma, resulting in workers’ compensation claims.

Carriers can support schools with:

• Recommendations for behavioral pattern recognition training, school safety and security assessments, and the latest technological advancements in gun detection.
• Sharing successful practices within special education environments and providing impactful ways to support the educators, such as providing student-specific personal protective equipment (PPE) options.
• In the event of a violent incident, carriers can provide claims management support, litigation perspectives, and catastrophic claims guidance.

These resources can create safer environments for both students and staff while reducing claim frequency and severity.

Sexual Abuse and Molestation Incidents

Sexual abuse and molestation (SAM) incidents are not restricted only to staff-on-student. In recent years, there has been an increase in student-on-student SAM incidents, which has expanded the threat to student safety and school liability.

Carriers can assist schools in establishing or strengthening SAM prevention programs through:

• Comprehensive abuse prevention toolkits, which can include model policy or programs, focused risk assessments and industry best practices.
• Enhanced background check recommendations for employees that go beyond basic industry standards. For example, a national database for professional educator discipline actions should be included.
• Awareness and training programs to help employees and the wider community recognize possible grooming behaviors, report early, and respond appropriately.
• Anonymous reporting platforms that encourage and enable anyone to report issues without fear of retaliation.

Carriers can also support schools by evaluating third-party SAM-related vendors to find solutions tailored to their needs.

The Cost of Inaction

Claims left unaddressed could result in nuclear verdicts, where jury awards exceed $10 million or those greater than the expected payout based upon the circumstances of the loss. These extremely high-cost legal settlements can threaten the financial stability of a school district. Moreover, the frequency and severity of these incidents can continue to increase over time, placing more pressure on school boards, administrators and staff while stretching resources thinner.

As insurance carriers look towards the future, they are researching and recommending emergent safety technology, like AI-powered intruder or weapon detection systems, intelligent surveillance, and incident management platforms that document and analyze behavior to better support schools.

Since schools may lack the bandwidth to explore these risk solutions independently, carriers can act as knowledgeable guides, vetting tools and connecting clients to potential effective, practical options.

By helping devise strategies to uncover risks and identify solutions to potentially prevent losses before they occur, carriers can become true partners in protecting both students and educators.