Just signed with michel Morton!

[jackie 7]

Best thing with MM is that you can use any contracts and you are still insured. My old la gave me great contracts which included some permission forms.

[Jods]

interesting thread - I am with NCMA but due for renewal and am considering MM, but like most things its a personal choice, but I do find the NCMA contracts difficult to complete for my minding needs, so created my own, knowing I am not covered seems a pointless exercise tbh x

[tialil]

This is what I am considering when mine is due for renewal soon. I have thought about it now for a few years but everytime I just renew. We no longer have a NCMA DO in our area so part of me is really thinking of trying somewhere else this time around.

Still I have about 6 weeks yet to think about it .

[starlight1]

I am a new Childminder and just signed up with them and was wondering if people found the full packs useful?

[jaswinder bedi]

Have moved with Morton and michal and also saved money.... Its just will take time get used to it!

[christine e]

interesting thread - I am with NCMA but due for renewal and am considering MM, but like most things its a personal choice, but I do find the NCMA contracts difficult to complete for my minding needs, so created my own, knowing I am not covered seems a pointless exercise tbh x

NCMA will only get involved with a contract dispute if you use their contracts this comes under membership services not insurance. Using your own contracts does not affect your public liability insurance.

Cx

[christine e]

This is what I am considering when mine is due for renewal soon. I have thought about it now for a few years but everytime I just renew. We no longer have a NCMA DO in our area so part of me is really thinking of trying somewhere else this time around.

Still I have about 6 weeks yet to think about it .

You have to remember that it was your local authority funding your development officer not NCMA. Your LA would have put childminder support out to tender and NCMA would have been given a contract to support childminders in your area. Many LA's are now not renewing contracts and withdrawing support as part of their cutbacks. NCMA are still their centrally supporting, lobbying and providing online training for members and are present in the regions via forums keeping in touch with members. I am off to my regional forum today to give my input

[tialil]

You have to remember that it was your local authority funding your development officer not NCMA. Your LA would have put childminder support out to tender and NCMA would have been given a contract to support childminders in your area. Many LA's are now not renewing contracts and withdrawing support as part of their cutbacks. NCMA are still their centrally supporting, lobbying and providing online training for members and are present in the regions via forums keeping in touch with members. I am off to my regional forum today to give my input

Thanks, it is our LA who are now providing our DO if we need help. Its all about money though at the end of the day. Quite sad really that everything comes down to money in the end but I suppose this is the sign of the times as all of us are going through really tight times.

[LauraS]

I am a new Childminder and just signed up with them and was wondering if people found the full packs useful?

I am also new and had the.full pack but didn't use it. I found that some of the formats.if.the.documents didn't tally with.how I wanted to do.things (for example attendance registers list multiple children on one page, I wanted one page per child.)

I had also created a lot of the documents needed for myself because the pack took so long to arrive (my fault, not mms) and felt mine were just as good, if not better in places, for the way I want to do things. Some of the.stuff in the full pack is entirely useless, like the policy and procedure stuff.

Everything I have is my own now, apart from contracts, and I will do those myself when I need more too.

Incidentally, I joined mm purely because.of the support I felt I would receive.in the case of a non paying parent. Mm provides a speedier resolution to my mind (by paying money owed themselves if.the case is viable) and then pursuing it. Ncma would assist in the court process but I might wait months or years (or forever!) for the money. I have already had.cause.to.use them and they are great.

[zippy]

I was with ncma for first year and then changed, membership fee is at too expensive and at the time I was a member 1998 I think didn't see any benefits from it that I can remember, so saved myself a tidy sum and moved to mm, never looked back they have got fab over the years and they are excellent at sorting out contract disputes, also no excess to pay for contract disputes in case anyone needs that info.

[pinkbutterfly]

Mm provides a speedier resolution to my mind (by paying money owed themselves if.the case is viable) and then pursuing it.

I know that with small amounts like the one I had which was just over £150 they do not pursue it. They just pay the outstanding amount to you as it's not worth their time to try to get the money back. The non paying parent did not find out the debt was settled so in fact I could have still taken her to small claims court but without the support of the insurer.

[Childrenatheart]

I wish NCMA would change the name of their business division so people had a clearer appreciation of the fact that the PLI is not the be all and end all. I get really fed up of debates saying how people are leaving NCMA & joining MM without making the distinction between NCMA membership & NCMA business services which includes insurance. NCMA are childminder's professional association. They charge a membership fee to support their work championing childminder issues and rights such as the current individual inspection campaign and Inland revenue tax special considerations cms have. Much of this work is behind the scenes so many CM's don't appreciate the work undertaken on their behalf. NCMA membership also gives access to a free ****** website to advertise vacancies and ****** resources and a number of retailer discounts, plus discounts on NCMA stationery, plus Who Minds magazine. As a member of NCMA one of the perks is to be able to buy cheaper public liability insurance. I dislike NCMAs new policy of admitting non-home based childcarers and voted against this BUT they are still our strongest ally against the current threats to our profession.
Morton Michel are an insurance broker but have added enhanced services to those taking out PL, home & motor insurance through them, including creative steps mag and some retailer discounts. They also produce their own stationery but have the advantage that you don't have to use this for their PLI.
When deciding what to do PLEASE think of NCMA membership and your PLI as two completely separate things. If you want to belong to your professional org and support it's work then pay NCMA membership, THEN look at both NCMA & MM PLI and decide which to go for but remember you can't take advantage of the cheaper NCMA PLI without being an NCMA member.
And just in case you were wondering - I am an NCMA member with MM PLI but when I renew I will go back to NCMA PLI because I still use their contracts, their legal service has improved & I have my car insurance via MM so I still get the benefit of creative steps etc.

[jadavi]

The thing that really put me off was the regional support meeting. All they wanted was to run their new branding by us and have our reaction to opening the doors to other settings not just cms. The Ofsted person didn't show up to discuss changes so they sent us home early instead of using the time to discuss the issues that we had all come to talk about using the knowledge we all had. I was a newly reg cm and it was my first group meeting. I was so disappointed; I had travelled really far to get there.
I did not feel that offering support to the people in the room was anywhere on their agenda. Everybody gave back negative evaluate forms...

I don't have much of a handle on the wider issues that they are supposed to be fighting on our behalf but if that is the case they need to Market themselves more visibly and Deliver what they claim ie offer support to cms

[fun house]

I was thinking of going with MM this year and so was a couple of other childminders that i know, but one of us were told we would have to pay £30 to extra for Indemnity. Does anyone know what this is and why we have to pay it?

[sarah707]

I was thinking of going with MM this year and so was a couple of other childminders that i know, but one of us were told we would have to pay £30 to extra for Indemnity. Does anyone know what this is and why we have to pay it?

No, that's not right.

I have been with MM for 18 years and I have only ever paid one payment - the annual fee for my PL insurance cover.

Everything I need for my childminding insurance is included within that fee.

Everything extra such as magazines, discounts for days out, newsletters, training guides etc is FREE.

If you are still unsure why not give MM a call and chat it through with their advisors - https://www.*****************/Childminder/

[mr man]

There you go ... have a free attendance register on me
I have also spent time typing MM contract into word and I change it if I need to. It also gives me the flexibility to email a draft before printing it. It saves time ... so no more lengthy meetings to sign the paperwork ... 10 minutes and it's all done.
I have had some issues with NCMA ... whenever I rang the person couldn't give me a straight answer.
With MM when I had a non payer they handled it very well ... I got the owed money from MM the next day without the need to go to court.
MM all the way.

I do the same as you, I'm with MM and I have my own registers I made, and my own contracts written alongside the MM ones .
Works great for me

[rachelle]

I have my pli and employers insurance with mm but am an NCMA member because this is what fits best with my business. I like to use my own paperwork, unique to my business (and sometimes adapted to each set of parents if I get uneasy) but I also like belonging to the one professional body that there is to represent me. (although not heard anything from them that I haven;t sourced myself for so long that I might rethink this at renewel time)

Creative steps I can read as a gold member of childcare site - it's a good magazine too