Why Georgia Still Needs Mandatory Daycare Liability Insurance
A parent should not have to discover, after a child is badly hurt, that the child care provider responsible for care had no liability insurance.
That is the gap Georgia still has not closed.
More than 20 years after Juan’s Law, families have a right to ask whether a child care provider carries liability insurance. Providers must disclose that information. That was a meaningful step. It gave parents visibility into a risk that had been hidden for too long.
But disclosure is not the same as protection.
In 2025, House Bill 269 tried to move Georgia closer to a stronger standard. In 2026, House Bill 1281 tried again. Neither became law. So the same basic question remains unanswered: Should a licensed child care provider be allowed to operate without liability insurance?
Georgia should answer no.
Liability insurance will not prevent every accident. It will not heal an injured child. It will not erase trauma from a family’s life. But when something serious happens, insurance can be the difference between a family having a path forward and a family being left with bills, losses, and legal rights that mean little because there is no realistic way to collect.
This article is for general information about public policy and legal issues. It is not legal advice.
Juan’s Law gave parents information, but not enough protection
Juan’s Law was built around a simple idea: parents deserve to know whether a child care provider has liability insurance.
That matters. A family choosing child care should not have to guess about something so important. When a provider lacks insurance, parents should not find out only after a fall, unsafe supervision, a transportation incident, or another serious injury.
Juan’s Law made the issue visible. It also created a paper trail. A provider’s insurance status became something families could ask about, review, and factor into their decision.
But the law stopped short of requiring coverage.
That distinction matters because the pressures around child care choices are real. Many families do not have unlimited options. They may need a provider close to work, close to home, open during certain hours, or affordable enough to fit the household budget. In parts of Georgia, families may face waitlists or limited licensed care. In those situations, a disclosure form does not create a true choice.
A parent may learn that a provider does not carry liability insurance and still feel they have no workable alternative.
That is why Georgia’s current approach falls short. It places the burden on parents to sort out a system-level risk. It tells families to be informed, but it does not require providers to meet a minimum financial responsibility standard.
A driver cannot simply disclose that they have no auto insurance and keep driving legally. A contractor, landlord, or business that serves the public often faces insurance expectations because accidents carry costs beyond the business itself. Child care should be treated with at least the same seriousness.
Children are not inventory. They are not customers passing through a store aisle. They are young, vulnerable, and dependent on adults for supervision, safe spaces, safe equipment, and emergency response.
If Georgia licenses a child care provider to care for children, the state should also require that provider to carry basic liability coverage.
Serious injuries can create costs that last for years
Most days in child care are ordinary. Children play, eat, nap, learn, and go home. That routine can make the risk feel distant.
But when a serious injury happens, the financial impact can arrive fast and last a long time.
A child may need:
Emergency medical care
Hospital treatment
Follow-up appointments
Physical or occupational therapy
Counseling or behavioral support
Medication or medical supplies
Mobility equipment or home adjustments
Specialized transportation
Long-term care for permanent injuries
The parents or guardians may also lose income. One adult might need to miss work for appointments, reduce hours, change jobs, or leave the workforce for a period of time. Siblings may need care. The household budget can collapse under pressure.
A lawsuit, by itself, does not solve that problem. A family may have a valid claim and still face an empty chair at the end of the process if the provider has no meaningful assets and no insurance coverage.
That is the practical point often missing from the debate.
Liability insurance does not create accountability on its own, but it helps make accountability real. It gives injured families a source of funds when a provider’s negligence causes harm. It also gives providers access to claim handling and legal defense, which can help resolve claims more efficiently and fairly.
Disclosure tells parents about risk. Insurance helps cover the cost when risk becomes reality.
That is why the phrase mandatory daycare liability insurance should not be treated as a technical insurance issue. It is a child safety and family protection issue.
The cost concern is real, but it should not end the debate
The strongest argument against mandatory coverage is cost.
Child care providers already face high expenses. Staffing, rent, food, utilities, training, background checks, supplies, maintenance, and regulatory compliance all add up. Many small centers operate on thin margins. Family child care homes may have even less room to absorb a new monthly bill.
That concern deserves a serious answer. It should not be brushed aside.
If a new insurance requirement is written carelessly, it could make child care more expensive. It could push some providers out of the market. It could place the greatest burden on small centers, rural providers, and programs serving lower-income families.
But those risks are reasons to design the law carefully, not reasons to leave families unprotected.
Commercial daycare liability insurance varies by provider. Premiums can depend on center size, number of children, claims history, location, coverage limits, type of care, transportation services, and other factors. No single estimate fits every business.
Still, current commercial estimates suggest that basic coverage can sometimes cost only a few dollars per child each month when spread across enrollment.
For example:
A $100 monthly premium spread across 30 children equals about $3.33 per child per month.
A $300 monthly premium spread across 30 children equals $10 per child per month.
Those are only examples, not guaranteed prices. Some providers would pay more. Some may pay less. Coverage limits matter. So do exclusions and deductibles.
But these examples show why Georgia should keep working on the policy. If the cost of basic protection can often be spread in small monthly amounts, the state should explore ways to make coverage workable rather than optional.
The question should not be whether providers face cost pressure. They do.
The better question is whether a licensed child care system should let the cost of uninsured injury fall on children and families instead.
Georgia can require coverage and support small providers at the same time
This debate often gets framed as a choice between family protection and child care access. That is too narrow.
Georgia can do both. The state can require basic liability insurance and build support for providers that need help meeting the standard.
A stronger law could include practical tools such as:
A shared insurance pool
Georgia could help create or support a group insurance option for qualifying child care providers. Pooling risk may help smaller providers access coverage on better terms than they could find alone.
Premium assistance for smaller or qualifying providers
The state could offer targeted help for providers that serve low-income families, operate in child care shortage areas, or demonstrate financial need. This could reduce the chance that a coverage requirement leads to closures.
A phased timeline
Providers could receive time to secure coverage, adjust budgets, and compare policies. A phased approach would be especially important for small centers and family child care homes.
Basic minimum coverage standards
A law should define what counts as acceptable liability coverage. Without clear standards, some providers might buy policies that look compliant but leave major gaps.
Support for catastrophic claims
Some claims involve unusually high losses. Georgia could study whether a backstop program, reserve fund, or excess coverage option would help protect families while keeping premiums more stable for providers.
Clear parent notices
Juan’s Law should not disappear. Parents should still receive clear information about coverage, policy status, and lapses. A mandate works best when it is paired with transparency.
None of these ideas removes every challenge. Insurance markets can change. Premiums can rise. Coverage disputes can happen. But policy does not need to be perfect to be better than the status quo.
Right now, Georgia has a system where parents may be told a provider has no liability insurance, then left to decide whether they can realistically walk away. That is not enough.
Licensing should mean more than permission to operate
A child care license signals something to the public. It tells families that the provider has met state requirements to care for children.
Licensing does not mean nothing bad will happen. No regulation can promise that. But licensing should mean the provider meets basic standards tied to safety, responsibility, and public trust.
Liability insurance belongs in that category.
Georgia does not need to treat every provider the same in every detail. A large center with transportation services may need different coverage than a small family child care home. A provider caring for infants may have different risk factors than an after-school program. Lawmakers can account for those differences.
But the baseline should be clear: if a provider is licensed to care for children, the provider should be financially prepared for the possibility that negligence causes harm.
That principle protects more than families. It can protect responsible providers too.
Many child care operators already carry insurance because they understand the risk. They pay premiums, follow carrier requirements, and treat coverage as part of doing business. When uninsured providers operate alongside them, the playing field is uneven. Responsible providers carry a cost that others avoid.
A mandatory insurance requirement would create a common floor. It would tell every provider that financial responsibility is not optional.
The failed bills should be treated as unfinished work
House Bill 269 in 2025 and House Bill 1281 in 2026 did not become law. That matters, but it should not be the end of the issue.
Legislation often takes more than one attempt. Especially when the subject touches family budgets, business costs, insurance markets, and state oversight, lawmakers need time to refine the details.
The next version should learn from the debate.
It should protect children and families without ignoring the real strain on providers. It should avoid vague requirements. It should include enough flexibility to reflect the range of child care settings in Georgia. It should also make coverage status easy for parents to confirm.
A serious bill should answer at least these questions:
What types of providers must carry coverage?
What minimum coverage limits are required?
What exclusions would make a policy inadequate?
How will parents be notified of coverage and lapses?
What happens if a provider fails to maintain insurance?
Will small or qualifying providers receive help with premiums?
How will the state prevent the rule from reducing access to care?
These are solvable design questions. They are not reasons for inaction.
The worst outcome would be for Georgia to keep repeating the same pattern: acknowledge the risk, debate the cost, fail to pass a bill, and leave families exposed.
Families should not carry this risk alone
Parents already carry enough responsibility when choosing child care.
They visit centers, ask questions, check schedules, review tuition, meet staff, think about safety, and hope they are making the right choice. They trust providers with the most precious part of their lives.
The state should not add one more hidden burden by allowing licensed providers to operate without liability insurance.
Yes, parents can ask about coverage. Yes, Juan’s Law gives them that right. But a right to know is not the same as a right to be protected from preventable financial ruin.
When a serious child care injury happens, the effects can stretch across years. Medical bills do not wait for a lawsuit. Therapy does not become affordable because a provider gave a disclosure. Lost wages do not return because a family was warned in advance.
Insurance is not a cure for harm, but it is a practical tool for justice.
Georgia should finish what Juan’s Law started
Juan’s Law was a beginning. It recognized that parents deserve the truth about liability insurance in child care. That was progress.
But after more than 20 years, Georgia should take the next step.
A licensed child care provider should not be allowed to operate without basic liability insurance. The rule should be clear, realistic, and paired with support for small providers that need help. Georgia can use shared insurance options, premium assistance, phased deadlines, and carefully written coverage standards to reduce the burden.
The goal is not to punish child care providers. Most providers work hard, care deeply, and do difficult work for modest pay. The goal is to make sure that when something goes terribly wrong, the cost does not fall only on an injured child and their family.
Georgia has already recognized the issue. Lawmakers have already tried to address it. Now the state needs to finish the job.
Parents should not have to choose between available child care and basic financial protection. Juan’s Law opened the door. Mandatory liability insurance is the next step through it.
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