Childcare and the Credit Crunch

The recession or credit crunch of 2008 and now 2009 has hit businesses of all types. This article looks at how nurseries, kindergartens, pre schools and other child care providers have been hit by the economic downturn.

For any business to be successful having a steady stream of customers is vital. For nurseries and other providers of childcare this is no different and successful childcare providers tend to guarantee this influx of new children year after year due to their reputation and the good word of mouth that comes with it.

However, even nurseries with good reputations are seeing this stream of new children coming under threat as parents look to cut their costs and seek alternative routes for their childcare. For many nurseries this has resulted in a downturn in their occupancy rates and with it an increase in their debts.

And due to the pre school industry being highly competitive, previous fee increases are now being put on hold or certainly reduced as nurseries know that any further increase in rates could well result in even further falls in children attending and more importantly, parents paying. The increase in debts is also likely to result in the direction of the nursery changing with many nurseries happy to keep ticking over and surviving rather than growing until the economy picks up.

The truth is the Worlds economy has had a major affect on the childcare industry and therefore nurseries, pre schools and kindergartens are having to look at ways to maintain and hopefully grow their business whilst at the same time looking to cut costs. Hopefully this need to cut costs will not mean job cuts with nurseries looking to make savings in other ways.

One way that nurseries could look to reduce their costs is to pay less for services they purchase. One major expense for many nurseries is the purchase of their nursery business insurance and savings could potential be made here. By using a specialist nursery insurance broker, it could be possible for a nursery to get the same level of insurance cover or even more for much les money than they are currently paying with their existing insurance provider.

A nursery business insurance specialist could also have access to cover that is simply unavailable from other insurance brokers. Cover that might be available from a insurance expert might include automatic personal accident benefits for children, legal expenses for protecting the nurseries registration certificate or play equipment being covered whilst within the grounds of the nursery.

There is no doubt about it that times are tough in the education and pre school education sector. For this reason nursery schools are doing all they can to maintain and even grow numbers as in general owners and being in the childcare industry have a real passion for providing high quality childcare to our sons and daughters. For this reason the credit crunch will hopefully start to see hope and profits return during 2009 so the health, safety, education and well being of the nations children can remain in good hands.

NCi Nursery is Nursery Insurance Specialists and for details of their Nursery Insurance facilities or to get a nursery insurance quote simply visit the UK Nurseries Insurance Experts.