So far our series of legal posts have discussed the importance of (1) a signed consent form and (2) background checks for all your counselors. A third component to protecting your ministry is insurance. Most church insurances have a counseling provision for the paid pastoral staff. However, if your ministry is like ours in that we have many volunteer counselors it is important to ensure that each of your staff counselors is covered under the policy.
We encourage you to ensure your counseling ministry is appropriately covered at each of your reviews. At Faith, we have had to change carriers due to an unwillingness to grant the coverage we expected.
