Understanding Liability and Insurance
Serving your neighbors is meaningful work, but it also comes with responsibility. Whenever volunteers are working on someone's property, using tools, or completing a neighbor’s project request, there are risks that need to be taken seriously.
NeighborLink has systems in place to help protect volunteers and neighbors, but that protection depends on everyone doing their part.
The most important thing to understand is simple:
Before a NeighborLink project begins, both the volunteer and the neighbor requesting help must sign the liability waiver.
Waivers Are the First Line of Protection
Liability waivers are an important part of every NeighborLink project. All volunteers and neighbors participating in a project are required to sign a NeighborLink liability waiver.
The waiver helps establish clear expectations for everyone involved and provides an important layer of protection as volunteers serve their neighbors.
Partner organizations may also choose to use their own volunteer liability waivers. This can be especially helpful when a church, business, or other organization is recruiting, onboarding, and coordinating volunteers under its own umbrella, even when those volunteers are ultimately serving through NeighborLink.
What Does NeighborLink's Insurance Cover?
NeighborLink Foundation Inc. maintains organizational insurance coverage, including General Liability, Directors & Officers, Cyber, and Errors & Omissions. This organizational coverage primarily protects NeighborLink's own board, executives, and staff.
It is important to understand that this coverage does not extend to partner organizations simply because they use the NeighborLink platform.
Partner organizations are expected to maintain their own organizational insurance, including General Liability and Directors & Officers coverage appropriate to their organization and activities.
What About Individual Volunteers?
NeighborLink also maintains a volunteer liability policy.
Individual volunteers and volunteers serving through partner organizations may be covered when they are serving a neighbor through an approved NeighborLink project, provided that:
- The project has been posted to the NeighborLink platform.
- The volunteer has been approved or otherwise properly connected to the project.
- The appropriate liability waiver has been signed.
- The work is being performed as part of a NeighborLink project.
This coverage is designed primarily around volunteers serving neighbors through projects connected through the NeighborLink platform.
That includes partner organizations that advocate for project submissions and coordinate volunteer efforts through their own initiatives, provided the projects remain available to other local NeighborLink volunteers.
What About Volunteers Who Aren't Registered?
NeighborLink recognizes that neighboring often happens through relationships.
A registered volunteer may invite a friend, coworker, family member, or someone else from their circle to serve alongside them. Partner organizations may also have volunteers who join a project without having completed the full NeighborLink registration process. These additional volunteers do not necessarily need to complete the entire registration process simply to participate in a particular project.
However, they must sign a NeighborLink liability waiver before beginning work.
NeighborLink is developing a simple process that will allow these volunteers to complete the waiver on-site before a project begins. This is important. Don't assume that someone is covered simply because they are working alongside a registered NeighborLink volunteer.
Make sure the appropriate waiver has been completed first.
When Partner Organizations Are Using NeighborLink
NeighborLink is designed to connect neighbors, volunteers, and communities, not to function simply as a private dispatching tool for an organization's own closed volunteer program.
A partner organization may use NeighborLink to:
- Advocate for neighbors and submit projects.
- Recruit and coordinate volunteers.
- Organize volunteer experiences.
- Bring additional volunteers to serve alongside others.
- Help connect community resources with local needs.
These activities can fall within NeighborLink's volunteer liability framework when they remain connected to the NeighborLink model and the projects remain available to other local NeighborLink volunteers.
However, a partner organization that uses NeighborLink strictly as a technical platform for its own closed-off initiatives—using the system exclusively to dispatch its own volunteers to its own projects—does not receive NeighborLink's volunteer liability coverage simply by using the technology.
If your organization is unsure whether a particular arrangement falls within NeighborLink's coverage, contact NeighborLink before beginning the work.
Volunteers Are Still Responsible for Safe and Legal Work
Insurance should never be viewed as permission to take unnecessary risks. Volunteers are responsible for performing work safely and following applicable laws, regulations, and licensing requirements in the state where the project takes place.
Those requirements can vary considerably from one state to another. For example, regulations governing home improvement work differ between Indiana and Michigan, including requirements surrounding when specific work must be performed by licensed professionals.
If you are unsure whether you are legally permitted to perform a particular type of work, stop and verify the requirements before beginning.
NeighborLink's volunteer liability coverage does not replace the need to follow state and local laws.
Coverage Has Limits
Volunteer liability coverage is not unlimited.
There is no individual coverage for volunteers who engage in gross negligence or willful misconduct. Volunteers are expected to use reasonable care, follow safety practices, and stay within the scope of work appropriate for the project.
There are also certain types of projects that NeighborLink considers an uninsurable risk. Those projects are addressed separately in our project eligibility guidelines.
If a project seems unsafe, unusually complex, outside your skill set, or potentially subject to licensing requirements, don't simply assume that you are covered. Ask before you act.
A Few Simple Rules to Remember
You don't need to be an insurance expert to serve your neighbors well. Just remember these basic principles:
1. Make sure the project is an approved NeighborLink project.
2. Make sure the neighbor has completed the appropriate waiver.
3. Make sure every volunteer has completed the appropriate waiver before beginning work.
4. Follow all applicable state and local laws and licensing requirements.
5. Stay within your skills and the scope of the project.
6. Never assume insurance makes an unsafe activity safe.
7. When in doubt, stop and ask.
Neighboring requires both compassion and responsibility. We want volunteers to feel empowered to use their gifts to serve their neighbors, while also recognizing that good intentions don't eliminate the need for wise boundaries.
The goal of these safeguards isn't to make neighboring complicated. It's to help us do it well.