Did you take out insurance for your au pair? Would this be similar to nanny insurance?

[stressed2007]

I wonder if someone can help. In a contract I have found to be entered into between an au pair and the host family it refers to the host family taking out a private insurance policy covering illness, pregnancy, birth/labour and accidents.(!). This is not something we were going to do ? do we have to do this? For example if ill I was assuming the European au pair will just use NHS resources.

However it then did occur to me it may not be a bad idea to have some insurance in case she injured herself badly while here (e.g. hurt herself in our house or outside of it). Has anyone got this type of insurace? I suspect this might be something covered by some house insurance cover (domestic help) but I wonder if the norm is to take out seperate insurance?

Thanks for your help.

Stressed, I did not. Don't recall any advice along those lines for an aupair. I would assume NHS. I also registered my aupair at the local GPs.

My aupair who had worked for 2 other UK families before she started with me said neither of those 2 families even took the step to register her at the GPs.

How many people actually take out private insurance for themselves? Even if they do, I believe a lot of these policies exclude for normal pregnancy in any case. So I don't think it is leaving an aupair high and dry not to take out such a policy. Are you looking at a UK aupair contract, not a US one, say (not that I know anything a US-style aupair contract).

Sounds like private medical insurance to me. Doubt your home insurance would cover those things - could ask your insurer what they do cover.
Would have thought that an au-pair would need to register with local GP and use NHS resources... but their country of residency will need to have a reciprocal agreement with Great Britain. So I think that means an EEA country, plus some other countries. Found details including list of countries on DH.gov.uk

yes I am sure NHS is more then sufficient and would register at doctors. I was thinking more in terms of her say hurting herself in home and the liability issue - not that there is anything wrong with our home it is just sometimes these things happen.

poss look into insurance against accidents

but against pregnancy/birth and labour - NO WAY

tell her to keep legs shut or use something!!

lol, imananny.

stressed, I checked my home insurance policy - I assure you I am not normally this geeky. I just happened to be at home with dd today and am quite interested to find out for myself. My home insurance policy is with Zurich and is one of the biggest providers of home insurance in UK.

Anyway, it specifically excludes liability on the part of the insurer for personal injury resulting from an accident in your home, if the injured person is you, your family or anyone employed by you. Questionable whether an aupair is considered an employee but I would have thought on the balance, she would be like a family member, if not an employee.

So in short, it is not likely that your home insurance will cover accidents to your aupair in your home. If she does injure herself, you could potentially be liable under occupiers' liability (tort) but the court will take into account any silly actions she did to bring this accident on herself. Not sure whether you would also be liable under health and safety regulations, an area I know very little about.

But then again, like you say, us aupair employers don't expect our houses to be death traps, seeing that we and our dcs live in it ourselves.

whether an aupair is considered an employee but I would have thought on the balance, she would be like a family member, if not an employee

i would of thought if you pay someone a wage then they are an employee

but I don't think au pairs are 'technically' paid a 'wage' ifyswim??

Yes, I am very careful to use the term 'pocket money' with my aupair, rather than 'salary' or 'wage'. In my contract, I remove all references to 'employment' or other loaded terms because the relationship is not strictly or solely that of employer-employee.

I have said before, it is not a living wage nor intended to be.

they are paid 'pocket money' and are officially not employees. but no idea what the insurance people would class an aupair as.

what website were you checking, stressed? aupairworld? it sounds to me like my insurance when i was an aupair in germany.in germany everyone has to pay health insurance contributions and a host family has to pay insurance for their aupair. there are special aupair insurance available and they cover pregnancy and giving birth. so if you read it on aupairworld which is german, it might be more relevant to aupairs in germany than in the uk.