Year-End Insurance Review Checklist for Nonprofit and Human Service Organizations

Year-end is when nonprofit leaders take stock. Budgets get closed out, board reports get written, and next year’s plans take shape. Insurance rarely makes the agenda, even though it is one of the few things that protects everything else on the list.

That is a missed opportunity. Over the past twelve months, your organization almost certainly changed. You may have launched a program, hired staff, signed a new lease, taken on a new funder, or started serving a different population. Your insurance program was built around who you were when you wrote the policy. The distance between that picture and your organization today is where coverage gaps tend to form.

A year-end insurance review closes that distance. It is not a renewal negotiation, and it does not require you to change anything. It is a structured look at what changed, what your policies say, and what to raise with your broker while there is still time to act. Whether your year ends in December or your fiscal year ends in June, the steps are the same.

Why Review Insurance at Year-End, Not Just at Renewal

Renewal is when decisions get made. But the work that makes those decisions good happens beforehand. Year-end is a natural checkpoint because the information you need is fresh and close at hand: final payroll figures, program counts, revenue, headcount, open incidents, and signed contracts.

Reviewing now also gives you room to act. Underwriting submissions take time to assemble, and adding a coverage or removing an exclusion is easier to negotiate when you start early than when the renewal deadline is days away. If you want a companion piece for the renewal conversation itself, see our guide to the five questions to ask before you renew.

Here are ten items to work through.

1. Document What Changed This Year

Start with a simple list of everything different from twelve months ago. Your broker needs this information to confirm your program still fits, and you will need it to complete renewal applications accurately.

Programs and services. Did you add, expand, or end any program? Residential components, transportation, youth activities, and community events each introduce different exposures.

Locations. Did you open, close, lease, buy, or renovate any space? Did you start operating in a new city or state?

People. Did your employee count, volunteer count, or contractor use change meaningfully? Which roles grew, particularly direct service roles?

Populations served. Are you working with a new age group, a higher-needs population, or a different referral source than before?

Revenue and budget. Some coverage limits and premiums are tied to revenue or payroll. A program sized for your organization two years ago may be undersized today.

Written down, this list becomes the backbone of your conversation with your broker.

2. Check Payroll Records and Workers’ Compensation

Workers’ compensation premiums typically depend on payroll and job classifications, and policies are usually subject to a premium audit after the term ends. Year-end is the right time to ensure your records support the numbers.

Confirm that your payroll totals are accurate and that employees are assigned to the correct classifications. Review how you treat volunteers, stipended workers, and independent contractors, since those categories often raise audit questions. If your headcount grew or shifted toward higher-risk roles, such as direct care, transportation, or maintenance, tell your broker now rather than discovering the difference at audit.

3. Revisit Property Values and Ordinance or Law Coverage

Construction and replacement costs change over time, and property values that were reasonable several years ago may no longer reflect what it would cost to rebuild or replace. Ask whether your building values, contents, and specialized equipment are up to date. Confirm that you’ve added any new equipment, technology, or renovations.

Also look at ordinance or law coverage. After a covered loss, local building codes may require upgrades that weren’t part of the original structure, and standard property coverage may not cover those added costs on its own. Our guide to ordinance or law coverage explains how it works and what to ask your broker about it.

4. Confirm Abuse and Molestation Coverage and Its Terms

If your organization works with children, seniors, people with disabilities, residents, or people in crisis, this should be near the top of your review. Standard general liability policies exclude abuse and molestation claims, so you must build this coverage into your program deliberately.

Do not stop at confirming it exists. Check the limits against your current size and the populations you serve. Ask whether third-party or client-to-client incidents are covered, whether defense costs sit inside or outside the limit, and how far back the retroactive date reaches. Our post on abuse and molestation insurance for nonprofits explains each term in detail.

5. Look for Exclusions in Your General Liability Policy

General liability is the foundation of most programs, and exclusions determine how much protection it actually provides. Pull out your policy or ask your broker for a plain-language summary of the exclusions that apply to you.

Pay particular attention to an athletic participation exclusion if you run sports, fitness, recreation, or physical education activities, even occasionally. Confirm that coverage applies to the activities you actually run, including special events and off-site programming. If you added a new activity this year, check it against the policy before the next one takes place.

6. Review Auto Liability, Hired and Non-Owned Auto, and Your Umbrella

Auto is one of the most commonly misstructured parts of a nonprofit program. Three checks are worth making at year-end.

First, confirm your vehicle schedule and driver list are up to date. Second, confirm that you carry hired and non-owned auto coverage if staff or volunteers ever use personal vehicles for organizational purposes, such as transporting clients or traveling between sites. Third, confirm that your umbrella policy includes auto liability. An umbrella only extends the coverages listed in it.

While you’re reviewing the umbrella, ask whether your limits still make sense for your size, programs, and the number of people you serve. Our guide to whether your nonprofit needs umbrella insurance can help frame that discussion.

7. Review Management Liability: D&O and EPLI

Boards turn over, executive teams change, and employment practices evolve. Year-end is a good time to review the coverages that protect the people who govern and manage your organization.

For directors and officers liability, confirm that your current board and leadership are accurately reflected and that limits are appropriate for the size and complexity of your organization. Our overview of directors and officers insurance for nonprofit and human service organizations covers what the coverage addresses.

For employment practices liability, ask whether your policy reflects your current headcount and any new locations. If you grew your workforce this year, hiring, discipline, and termination decisions create more exposure than before. Management liability policies are often written on a claims-made basis, so it is also worth asking how reporting requirements and any retroactive date apply.

8. Reassess Cyber Liability

Nonprofits hold donor records, client files, health information, payment data, and employee records. Cyber risk grows as that data and the systems that hold it grow.

Ask whether your current cyber coverage reflects the data you hold today and the systems you use. Confirm what the policy covers, such as breach response, legal counsel, and business interruption, and whether any of those items have sublimits. Ask your broker which security controls carriers expect to see, so you are not surprised at renewal. Our page on cyber liability insurance for nonprofit and human service organizations is a good place to start. If you haven’t recently reviewed it, it’s also worth asking about crime coverage, which addresses losses from employee theft and certain fraud schemes.

9. Review Claims, Incidents, and Contract Requirements

Two items from your year-end paperwork deserve a dedicated look.

Claims and incidents. Review open claims with your broker and confirm that you’ve reported every incident from this year. Policies have notice requirements, and you should report a situation that could become a claim when it happens, not when a demand letter arrives. Ask your broker how First Notice of Loss works for your program, and who you contact when something goes wrong.

Contracts and certificates. Funders, government agencies, landlords, and partner organizations often require specific coverages, limits, and additional insured language. Pull together the insurance requirements from every contract you signed or renewed this year, and confirm your program meets each one. Meeting a minimum on paper isn’t the same as being protected, so also ask whether those required limits match your actual exposure.

10. Check Your Emergency and Continuity Plan

Insurance responds after a loss, but preparation determines how quickly you recover. Review your disaster preparedness and continuity plans alongside your coverage. Confirm that you know how you would continue serving clients if a facility were unavailable, and whether your property and business income coverage matches that plan. Our guide to the 7 principles of a disaster preparedness plan for nonprofit organizations offers a practical framework.

Documents to Gather Before You Talk to Your Broker

You will get far more from your review if you bring the right information. Collect these items:

• Your current policies, declarations pages, and endorsement lists
• Your list of changes from item 1, including programs, locations, headcount, and revenue
• Final or year-to-date payroll by job classification
• Current property schedule, vehicle schedule, and driver list
• A summary of this year’s claims and incidents
• Insurance requirements from your contracts, grants, and leases
• Current board and executive roster

What to Do With What You Find

A year-end review will usually produce a short list of questions rather than a long list of problems. Take that list to your broker and ask for a plain-language answer on each item. If something is unclear or the answers take a long time to arrive, note it before you commit to another year.

Review is also a good test of the broker relationship itself. A specialist broker should be able to talk through every item on this checklist in the context of the work you do, and should be reaching out to you about it before you reach out to them.

How Lamb Can Help

Lamb Insurance Services is the largest insurance broker in the country dedicated exclusively to nonprofit and human service organizations. With over 20 years of experience, our team understands the vulnerabilities and exposures that come with this work, and we build programs around them rather than around a generic commercial template.

Our service model, Lamb Safeguard Protect, covers the full life of a loss: before, during, and after. Our team supports clients with loss control, claims advocacy, and ongoing account management support. If you would like a second set of eyes on your program as the year closes, we are happy to walk through this checklist with you.

Talk to a Lamb client executive today.