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09/10/2025 intern agreements

Rhonda Combs, City of Salinas

Good evening. A local community college wishes to place an intern with the City of Salinas and is proposing something akin to a CSU service agreement but way more barebones. The City will not pay the intern but the community college will give the student credits in exchange for completing the internship. City of Salinas does not maintain WC coverage for volunteers/unpaid interns, and I will clarify that within the MOU. However, am trying to determine how the indemnification and insurance provisions should be established. The sample CSU service agreements online appear to be putting CSU on the hook for its negligence and the agency (without regard to profit status or type of agency but assuming many are public due to the service credit nature) for the negligence of its employees. The City does NOT usually include acceptance of liability for negligence like that but also does not have any program or best practices in place for interns and internships. Anyone have sample agreements, programs, or heck, even opinions you could share, please? Thank you in advance!

1 replies
Daniel J Howell

09/10/2025 11:55:26 AM

Hi - I have a lot of experience with Cal State University's approach to internships/placement agreements. CSU has built a couple of programs for the liability coverage. One is Student Professional Liability Insurance Program (SPLIP). That is for students doing in classroom teaching needed to get credentialed and for nurses and allied health that need in field practicum. The other program for liability is Student Academic Field Experience for Credit Liability Insurance Program (SAFECLIP - long name, eh?). Depending on the type of internship with the city one of the two programs ought to apply. So for insurance, I'd state in the agreement (if with CSU) that the student will have liabiilty coverage for general and professional liability of at least $X ($5 million for SPLIP and $1 million for SAFECLIP). As to the WC, the law in CA via WCAB decisions is that the student teachers and allied health are due WC coverage. Other interns are not. CSU will pick up the WC when it absolutely has to have the placement - like with a key hospital or school district - because they have to get the students a certain number of hours of practicum to get their degree. I believe the JPA's covering community colleges just pick up the liability if the college agrees to pick it up. I'd push back on the WC and state that the college will indemnify for WC as required by law and maintain a student accident policy if no WC is to be afforded.