Article

Student safety and accidents in educational institutions: turning duty of care into practical protection

Protect students and trust: practical duty-of-care steps, WHS controls, and clarity on public liability vs student accident cover for schools.

In educational institutions, student accidents rarely stay contained to an incident report. They can quickly become a trust issue for families, a governance issue for boards, and a financial issue for an institution if the response is unclear or expectations are misaligned.

The challenge is whether student safety is managed in a way that is practical, repeatable, and defensible across everyday activities and higher-risk moments such as sport, excursions, camps, and contractor works on site.

When an incident occurs, leaders are judged on two things: whether reasonable steps were taken to prevent harm and whether the response is clear, timely and caring.

Why student protection is both a safety and trust issue

Educational institutions manage a wide range of activities and environments, often with large numbers of people in shared spaces, including:

Sport and physical education
Playgrounds and outdoor areas
Excursions, camps, and international tours
Boarding environments
Community events involving visitors and volunteers

Incidents often occur at “interfaces”, where students interact with equipment, third parties, changing conditions, or environments not designed for error.

These are not niche operational issues. They are governance issues because they involve children and young people, and because the consequences can extend beyond the injury itself.

Duty of care and negligence: what leaders need to be able to show

Schools are expected to take reasonable steps to protect students from foreseeable harm. While legal requirements vary between states and territories, the expectation of a duty of care is consistent. In practice, families also expect schools to have appropriate insurance in place, including cover such as student accident insurance, as part of that broader duty of care approach.

Work health and safety (WHS) frameworks shape expectations for how risks are identified and controlled, particularly where staff, contractors, and volunteers are involved.

For leadership teams, the practical question is: can we show that critical risks are identified, controls are in place, and supervision and assurance are real, not assumed? Policies matter but confidence comes from how controls operate at the interfaces where things can go wrong.

Where student injuries and incidents commonly occur

Recurring loss drivers often sit in a handful of areas. Most institutions recognise the categories below, but the difference is how consistently they are governed.

Sport and physical education: supervision, equipment checks, field conditions, first aid, concussion and return-to-play decisions
Playgrounds: inspection regimes plus maintenance evidence and timely rectification
Excursions and camps: provider due diligence, emergency response planning, water safety, transport, and medical information management
Technology-enabled harm: cyberbullying and social media incidents with wellbeing impacts

Public liability vs student accident cover: what each covers

Many educational institutions hear “we have public liability insurance” and assume that resolves the student protection question. In practice, liability insurance and student accident insurance (often structured as group personal accident cover) respond differently.

Public liability insurance generally responds to allegations of negligence where the institution may be legally liable for bodily injury or property damage, subject to policy terms, conditions and the facts. It can also fund defence costs where allegations arise.
Student accident insurance is often designed to provide defined benefits following an injury event regardless of fault, subject to the policy terms and conditions. Used well, it can provide families with faster financial support and reduce friction at a difficult time.

In many cases student accident cover is structured as lump-sum cover for serious, traumatic injuries rather than routine medical reimbursement. This is why triggers, definitions and limits in the policy schedule matter.

A note on Medicare and medical expenses: In Australia, general insurers who provide student accident insurance cannot pay for medical expenses where Medicare benefits apply. Depending on the policy terms, some non-Medicare medical expenses are reimbursable for certain student and sporting activities. Clarity here helps avoid surprises at claim time.

Why many educational institutions choose student accident cover

Even where liability insurance is in place, student accident cover is commonly purchased as a discretionary support mechanism for school communities.

Used well, it can:

Demonstrate care and support for families in crisis, which supports trust
Reduce disputes about fault by providing assistance without requiring proof of negligence
Provide a clearer pathway for early support before liability positions are assessed

Program design should reflect the reality of claims patterns. Many educational institutions see higher volumes of lower-severity injuries, while catastrophic injuries are rarer but high impact. Both matter when setting expectations internally and with families.

Turning duty of care into repeatable practice

Strong student protection programs are built on disciplines that work consistently across sites, staff, and activities:

Make higher-risk activities visible to leadership and operations teams
Define decision rights and non-negotiables (supervision, medical information, venue selection, emergency response)
Standardise third-party due diligence to reduce variability
Make medical information usable during incidents (on camp, after hours, and in remote locations)
Evidence the basics for assurance (maintenance, training, incident learnings, supervision and planning)
Align insurance wording to real scenarios (camps, sport, tours, work experience, volunteers, contractors)

Educational institutions should not wait for a serious incident to test whether their student protection program works in practice. Near misses, routine activity planning (sport, camps, excursions), and contractor works on live sites can all be used to test whether critical controls are understood and applied consistently.

Questions for education leaders

If a serious injury occurred on camp tomorrow, would our team know what to do in the first hour, and who would lead communications?
Are we relying on individual staff experience, or on repeatable controls (supervision ratios, provider checks, emergency response plans)?
Can we clearly explain what public liability covers vs what student accident covers, internally and to families?
Which activities create the most uncertainty for leaders (water, sport, boarding, contractors), and have we focused assurance there?
If asked tomorrow, could we show evidence that controls are implemented and verified in practice?
Are we setting families up with clear expectations about support, rather than leaving the conversation until claim time?

How Marsh can help

Marsh works with Australian educational institutions to strengthen health and safety risk management, governance and regulatory readiness. Our education specialists combine deep sector knowledge with broader risk, insurance and advisory capability to help leaders identify priority exposures, strengthen critical controls and make decisions with greater confidence.

To discuss how Marsh can support your organisation, please contact your Marsh representative or our education team.

This publication is not intended to be taken as advice regarding any individual situation and should not be relied upon as such. The information contained herein is based on sources we believe reliable, but we make no representation or warranty as to its accuracy. Marsh shall have no obligation to update this publication and shall have no liability to you or any other party arising out of this publication or any matter contained herein. Any statements concerning actuarial, tax, accounting, or legal matters are based solely on our experience as insurance brokers and risk consultants and are not to be relied upon as actuarial, accounting, tax, or legal advice, for which you should consult your own professional advisors. Any modelling, analytics, or projections are subject to inherent uncertainty, and any analysis could be materially affected if any underlying assumptions, conditions, information, or factors are inaccurate or incomplete or should change.

Page Compliance ID