Employees are generally considered the lifeblood of any organization, but you also have to think of them as liability risks. As unpopular an opinion as that is, it’s true. Any of your employees can make your nonprofit the target of a lawsuit. One trend that has been contributing to liability issues since the 90s relates to employment practices liability (EPL) claims. 

There are various types of EPL claims that can be filed against your organization. Allegations on the basis of racism used to be the leading type of complaint against employers and are still on the rise. Today, one of the biggest types of EPL claims relate to sexual discrimination and harassment. Issues like these are typically hard to resolve as people become emotionally involved and take their cases to court, with employers resorting to illegal retaliation such as wrongful discharge, failure to promote or provide raises, etc.

Schools have come under the limelight of late, in part due to the abilities of educators and teachers in coping and providing education despite the pandemic. However, female educators have increasingly been reporting instances of discrimination and sexual harassment in both universities and elementary schools. These claims lead to significant retaliation, usually in the form of unequal pay and promotion denials.

In order to avoid the whole rigmarole of having to compensate EPL claims (whether or not they are true), it pays to analyze the major EPL claim trending right now, and the losses associated with it. Sexual harassment and gender discrimination are costing the education industry several hundred thousands of dollars. The median cost of these losses (including the cost of retaliation) are well over $200,000. The severity of these losses generally lie anywhere between $10,000 and $10 million for the education sector. 

Put it in numbers and it’s easy to see how significant these EPL claims really are. And they only seem to be rising. No matter what industry your organization is in, whether you run a for-profit or nonprofit, you should realize that gender-related claims contribute considerably as a liability risk. It becomes important not only to prevent these instances from occurring, but should they happen, it’s equally important to be adequately protected against these risks. 

A simple way to stay financially protected against liability risks like gender discrimination EPL claims is to get nonprofit insurance. Get in touch with insurance experts (like the ones at Carriage Trade) to figure out what type and how much of insurance your unique nonprofit will need to take care of potential losses that could get in the way of your organization’s service to our communities.