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Household staff coverage.
Nannies, housekeepers, gardeners, chefs, drivers. Workers comp and liability for domestic employees — and the headaches of payroll, taxes, and W-2s that come with them.
What it is.
Nannies, housekeepers, gardeners, chefs, drivers, estate managers. Domestic employees come with workers comp obligations, employment-practices exposure, and (often) a tangle of payroll, tax, and W-2 considerations. The right insurance package handles the comp + EPLI + liability cleanly; the wrong package leaves you personally exposed to claims that should have been routed through coverage.
The lines in your policy.
Each one is its own knob. The carrier's default rarely fits a real life.
What a claim looks like.
Three anonymized files. Numbers are illustrative.
Live-in housekeeper falls on stairs while working. Medical + 6 weeks recovery: $24K total. Domestic WC pays in full. Without coverage, the family would be personally liable plus likely facing a claim. WC structure also limits the family's tort exposure.
Long-term nanny terminated after a child-care disagreement files wrongful-termination claim alleging discrimination. EPLI pays $35K in defense + $80K settlement. Without it, the family pays out of pocket — and these claims tend to be public.
Family driver causes an at-fault accident while on duty. Damages: $48K. Personal auto policy on the driver's vehicle pays first; the household-staff endorsement provides excess on top, plus EPLI defense if the driver later sues.
How to read a household staff policy.
The four things worth looking for on the dec page, in the order we read them.
The first page tells you who's actually covered, on what address, and under whose legal entity. A surprising number of policies have the wrong name, the wrong address, or a missing additional insured, and you don't find out until you file a claim. Cross-check it against your driver's license, your title or lease, and any contract that requires you to be insured.
Policy limits are abstract until you stack them against the assets they protect. A $300k liability limit feels generous in isolation; against a $1.2M home and a college fund, it isn't. Walk down each numbered line on your dec page and ask: if this were the cap on the worst day, would I be okay?
Page one shows you the base form. Pages four through twelve show you what the endorsements added, and, more importantly, what they took away. Water-damage exclusions, roof-payment schedules, named-storm deductibles, scheduled-valuables caps. These small numbered forms decide more claims than the headline limits do.
Carriers re-rate, re-form, and re-endorse policies at every renewal. If you keep last year's dec page, a side-by-side read takes ten minutes and tells you which limits drifted, which sublimits got cut, and which endorsements quietly disappeared. It's the single most useful habit in personal insurance.
Frequently asked questions.
Do I really need workers comp for a single nanny?
Depends on state and hours. Missouri and Kansas have thresholds that trigger required WC; below those thresholds, voluntary WC is still strongly recommended. The premium is modest; the alternative is personal liability plus complicated tort exposure.
How does payroll tax interact with this?
Domestic employee payroll is a separate compliance regime (W-2, FICA, withholding, state UI). We're not tax advisors but we partner with services like HomeWork Solutions to handle it. Coverage and payroll are separate but related.
Does my homeowners cover staff injuries?
Some policies have de minimis 'casual employment' coverage — usually capped low and full of exclusions. For full-time staff, that coverage is structurally inadequate. A dedicated household-staff policy is the right answer.
What about a 1099 contractor / agency-supplied staff?
1099 status is fragile in domestic-help contexts; most full-time household workers are legally employees regardless of how they're paid. Agency-supplied staff carry their own coverage but the family may have residual contractual exposure. Always read the agency contract.
Want a second read on your household staff policy?
Send us your declarations page. You'll get it back marked up, in plain language, with the gaps and the over-coverage flagged, yours to keep, no obligation to switch.
or phone (913) 408-7280
We're an independent broker. We represent you, not the carrier , paid by the carrier we ultimately place with, but accountable only to the person whose name is on the policy. Read more about how we work.