Doula Programs: Do You Need Insurance?

I started the Doulas Care community-based volunteer doula program in 1999. This grassroots effort was a slow one-person start up and grew to become a nonprofit program with four staff members, multiple student interns, and approximately eighty active volunteers, serving approximately 250 families per year. The program was up and running and served eight women in the first two years. As I was getting the 501(c)(3) nonprofit status secured and recruiting our initial board of directors, expansion of the doula program was put on the back burner while board members considered the issue of liability exposure.

The ensuing search for suitable insurance for our doula program proved elusive. It wasn’t merely a matter of cost, or that we couldn’t afford it. It simply didn’t exist! One group did offer insurance to individual, certified doulas. This option was not consistent with our program needs. Our volunteer base was developed on the concept that newly trained doulas seeking to fulfill certification requirements would be eager to provide support to families who otherwise could not afford to pay for doula services. The program was designed, from its inception, to serve both the doulas and the families and was framed, in part, as career development for low-income women. We could not require certification as a prerequisite for insurance when the essence of what we were doing was creating a pathway to professional certification. After exhausting available options, we opted to forego “errors and omissions” insurance and focused instead on risk-reduction strategies. More next week …

The Doula Programs blog provides a forum for doula program visionaries and implementers to consider common challenges, ask questions, and learn from each other. Patty Brennan is the author of The Doula Business Guide: Creating a Successful MotherBaby Business.

Posted by Patty Brennan on June 2, 2011 • Filed under Doula Programs
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