Volunteers Insurance Service — VIS®

Volunteers Insurance Service was established over 40 years ago to address the liability concerns that are shared by many volunteers, would-be volunteers and the nonprofit organizations that use their help. After reading about our volunteer coverage, you can complete an application right here at the Web site, and either submit it online or print it out to send us later.

All others:

Forms – Applications, policies, coverage details, brochure, claim form, sample volunteer
roster.


The Inexpensive Solution to Volunteer Protection:

Sometimes, volunteers have accidents - injure someone, get hurt themselves, or have an auto accident. Usually, their own insurance is not enough to take care of the damage.

Volunteers can be covered by your organization's own commercial general liability policy and (in some states) workers' compensation policy. There can be problems with this approach, however. Some considerations:

  • Should a volunteer have a liability claim, the available limits of insurance under your commercial general liability policy would be reduced, leaving the organization itself with reduced protection. Your claims experience also would be affected, which could result in a rate increase. The VIS® program allows you to protect your organization's available limits, and its claims experience, too.
  • The commercial liability policy has important exclusions – claims by one volunteer against another, and incidents occurring during travel between the volunteer's home and place of volunteer service. (Workers' compensation policies also have the "travel" exclusion.) The VIS® program has neither of those exclusions.
  • As far as protecting volunteers who drive is concerned, the organization's own commercial auto policy often provides no protection. In that case, without our program's excess auto liability coverage the volunteer would have to rely totally on his or her own insurance for liability. Even if volunteers are included as insureds, the organization would be sharing its available limits of liability, and claims experience, in the event of a claim.

In a nutshell, the VIS® program allows the nonprofit organization to separate the risks volunteers represent, and do it very inexpensively.

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Protecting volunteers with specialized coverage - the VIS® program:

To protect your volunteers, CIMA's Volunteers Insurance Service program offers the following three coverages separately or combined:

  • Up to $1,000,000 in personal liability insurance - $1.72 per volunteer per year with a minimum premium of $100;
  • For those volunteers who drive, up to $500,000 in excess automobile liability insurance above the volunteer's own insurance - $6.04 per volunteer per year with a minimum premium of $100.

Total cost per volunteer if all coverages are elected: $11.51 per year.

The only other cost involved is the required annual $135 fee that the organization pays for membership in VIS.

When you begin insuring your volunteers with programs available through VIS, you will receive an email link to each issue of VIS Connections, published in-house by VIS as a means of helping nonprofit organizations understand their exposures to various risks, and take appropriate action to minimize those risks.

We make insurance coverage available to some 2.5 million volunteers every year through 5,000 participating organizations. Those include the Corporation For National and Community Service programs (Retired Senior Volunteer, Foster Grandparent, Senior Companion); social service nonprofits of every description; local governments; work-release and alternative sentencing programs; and many others.

Go directly to a traditional Volunteer Insurance application.

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Court-appointed special advocates, and participants in work-release and alternative-sentencing programs:

Our volunteer insurance also is available to court-appointed special advocates, who provide care and counseling for children whose families are involved in court proceedings. The accident portion of our volunteer insurance is available to participants in work-release and alternative-sentencing programs.

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Volunteer/Employee Dishonesty Coverage:

Every organization has a risk exposure that no one likes to think about... the situation in which a volunteer or employee embezzles funds, pilfers supplies or in some other way steals from the organization. Insurance company claim reports on these situations show that, quite often, the dishonest volunteer or employee was never suspected, got away with the deception for years, and was caught only by accident.

Volunteers Insurance Service now offers insurance coverage for this risk exposure. The minimum annual premium of $203 covers up to ten volunteers or employees. Additional volunteers or employees can be covered for a minimal additional premium.Go directly to an application.

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Membership in Volunteers Insurance Service:

The VIS insurance programs are available exclusively to members, who pay an annual $135 membership fee. VIS provides the following services to members:

  • Publishing VIS Connections as one of our information resources for members;
  • Maintaining for members' use a library of information relating to management of risks in the nonprofit organization;
  • Researching available and appropriate insurance relating to volunteer activities;
  • Designing and administering insurance programs, and compiling underwriting information;
  • Providing consultation on risk management issues at no charge to our members, via a toll-free line (1-800-468-4200);
  • Assisting members, on request, with matters relating to insurance.

Frequently asked questions about our volunteer insurance program.

Leave an e-mail message for one of our staff to call you about the program.

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