The church I work in is looking at its child protection policies. I have used Plan to Protect in other places. We are at the point where we could likely do all of our training in house using staff. How do we know our training will be sufficient for insurance companies? We are a small church.
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The answer to your question is to directly ask your insurance company, and to get an answer in writing.
Yes, it's good to check directly with your insurance company, I wouldn't want to attempt to speak for them. Safe Church has resources on our website, which may be helpful in training staff and volunteers.
To be clear, I'm not at all suggesting the Safe Church resources wouldn't be good. What I am suggesting is that at least some insurance companies will have specific requirements that become a "condition of coverage," such that they will deny coverage if later a claim is made and they discover that the condition wasn't fulfilled. And these conditions need not be rational. This is contract law. And that's why I suggest getting an answer IN WRITING from the ins co.
I would also add that if you comply with ins co requirements, you can ALSO use Safe Church or other resources/training, that is, first comply with any ins co requirements and then also do what you think is good to do. And Safe Church exists to help with that (figure out what is good to do on top of ins co requirements).
Thanks for the comments! It's also important to note that the Safe Church Ministry office doesn't have the capacity to stay current with laws that apply to churches and that vary from state to state and from province to province. Local resources are needed for good policy development. That's why every classis is encouraged to have a safe church team, which can be an important local resource for our congregations. Insurance companies are also great resources for information. It takes all of us working together to help make our congregations safer for everyone.
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