Start your own summer camp!

Step 8 Legal matters: medical and liability insurance.

You'll need to get medical and liability insurance to run your camp. It's good to have in case of an accident, and no site will rent to you unless you have insurance and have named the site as a secondary policy holder on the liability insurance.

You can get insurance specifically for summer camp. We get our insurance from Maryann Mueller at Schirick and Associates. I've never had to file a claim with them, so I can't say how well that works. They are dear to me because in the first summer we ran, when I blissfully knew nothing about liability, I found out four days before we were slated to open that our site wouldn't rent to us if we didn't have liability insurance. This company processed our application within a day and was very affordable.

We also have a clause in our health form that we ask parents to sign, saying essentially that the family understands that we do our best and that we can't guarante an accident-free, injury-free experience.

It's been suggested that in addition to this, we require an arbitration to clause to be signed -- requiring that a family enter arbitration with camp before suing us. Apparently waivers are worthless if claims of negligence are made, but arbitation can help diffuse legal tensions. We have yet to try it, but it's something I consider.