Virginia Nursing Homes Operated Without the Liability Insurance the Law Requires: What Injured Residents and Families Should Know

In March 2026, CBS 6 (WTVR) in Richmond reported on internal Virginia Department of Health emails showing the agency was not enforcing a state requirement that nursing homes carry minimum liability insurance to hold a license. A December 2025 email from a department supervisor stated it plainly: "we are not enforcing this requirement."

The same internal discussion, as reported by CBS 6, weighed two choices. The agency could re-review every facility's insurance documentation and move to revoke the licenses of homes that fell short, or it could leave the gap alone and hope a reporter did not find it. One email worried the department appeared, in its own words, "ignorant of the codes that we are supposed to be enforcing."

The job of enforcing nursing home licensure rules sits with the Office of Licensure and Certification, a division inside the Virginia Department of Health. April Dovel became the director of that office in November 2025, about a month before the 2026 renewal cycle was completed, according to CBS 6.

These are the department's own records, reported by a named news organization, not rumor or allegation. What they describe is a regulator deciding, in writing, not to enforce a consumer-protection rule that exists to make sure injured residents have a source of recovery.

The rule in question is in the Virginia Administrative Code, at 12VAC5-371-160, which governs the licensure of nursing facilities. It requires each facility to carry noneroding general liability insurance of at least $1 million per occurrence, and professional liability coverage at least equal to Virginia's medical malpractice recovery limit per patient occurrence.

That malpractice limit is set by a separate statute, Virginia Code Section 8.01-581.15. It rises by $50,000 each year on a fixed schedule. For acts of malpractice occurring between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026 the cap is $2.7 million, and for the year beginning July 1, 2026 it is $2.75 million. So the professional liability floor for a Virginia nursing home tracks that figure.

The word noneroding matters more than it looks. A noneroding policy limit is not reduced by the cost of defending the claim. With an ordinary eroding policy, the lawyers defending the facility are paid out of the same pot of money that would otherwise pay the injured resident, so a long fight can shrink what is left to recover. Noneroding coverage keeps the full limit available for the harm. A 2025 Virginia law, Senate Bill 1152, strengthened the requirement, including that the coverage apply per facility rather than be spread across a chain of homes under common ownership.

The regulation is not written as a suggestion. It states that failure to maintain the minimum limits "shall result in revocation of the nursing facility's license," and it requires each facility to provide proof of coverage at licensure renewal or have it available to the board. The enforcement that CBS 6's reporting describes as missing is the step where the department actually checks that proof and acts when it is not there.

The insurance requirement exists for one practical reason. When a facility's neglect or abuse seriously injures a resident, there has to be money to pay for the harm. A judgment or settlement is only worth what a family can actually collect.

If a facility carries no coverage, or far too little, a family can document the neglect, prove it, and still recover only a fraction of what the injury is worth, because the home may hold few assets anyone can reach. This is not a hypothetical in the nursing home industry. As our article on Henrico Health and Rehabilitation Center describes, operators sometimes route money out of the home that provides the care and into related companies through rent and management fees, which can leave the facility that caused the harm looking thin on paper even when the business behind it is doing fine.

The enforcement gap is most dangerous at exactly the facilities where injuries are most likely. The homes with the worst inspection records are the ones most likely to be sued, and the ones an insurer is least eager to cover at a reasonable price. Letting a troubled, underinsured facility keep its license without proving coverage shifts that risk onto the residents and families who can least afford it.

None of this changes what a family has to prove. A claim still turns on showing that the facility's care fell below the standard and caused the injury. But the insurance question decides whether a proven claim turns into real help, which is why the state checking it at renewal is not a formality.

CBS 6 identified Princess Anne Health and Rehabilitation Center in Virginia Beach as one home found during renewal to lack the minimum coverage. Its recent record shows why the coverage question is not academic.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services terminated the facility's Medicare and Medicaid certification in August 2025 for failing to meet basic health and safety requirements, a step regulators rarely take. According to CBS 6, state inspectors documented 52 violations between February and December 2025, including 23 repeat violations and 7 in which residents suffered harm. The cited problems included inadequate supervision that led to falls, a resident found in blood-soaked clothing after leaving the building, a pressure ulcer that developed within days of admission, and a December abuse citation in which staff forced a vaccine on a resident who had a documented fear of needles.

The department's own Long-Term Care Division director, Kenya Jeanlouis, recommended denying the license renewal. In writing, as reported by CBS 6, she said the facility had "demonstrated a sustained and systemic pattern of noncompliance over the past eleven months" and that "residents remain at ongoing and unacceptable risk for harm."

Despite that recommendation, the Virginia Department of Health approved the facility's license renewal on March 20, 2026, after it supplied updated insurance documentation following questions from CBS 6. The facility operates under a consent agreement that limits it to 10 residents until it passes two consecutive inspections without violations. These are government findings and a regulator's recommendation, part of the public record. Whether any one resident's injury supports a legal claim depends on that resident's own medical records and what happened to them.

The insurance gap is one piece of a documented strain on Virginia's nursing home oversight. In reporting through 2026, CBS 6 and state officials described an inspection system that has fallen behind for years.

By mid-2026, officials reported that about 58 percent of Virginia nursing homes were overdue for their standard inspection, against a national average near 13 percent, which placed Virginia among the worst states in the country for inspection delays. The department received more than 1,000 nursing home complaints in the year, covering neglect, medication problems, understaffing, and residents left soiled. The agency extended its own deadline for clearing the inspection backlog to December 31, 2027, and as of July 2026 about a quarter of the positions in the division responsible for inspections were vacant.

On the insurance rule specifically, the department told CBS 6 it developed a corrective plan: review facilities for documentation gaps, communicate the requirement to providers, allow a 30-day window to come into compliance, and check coverage during onsite inspections. Those are reasonable steps. They are also the steps that, by the department's own emails, had not been happening.

Behind most of these failures sits the same root cause. As our article on nursing home abuse and the understaffing problem explains, when a facility does not have enough staff on a shift to reposition residents, answer call bells, and keep people clean and dry, the predictable results are pressure ulcers, falls, dehydration, weight loss, and infections that go unrecognized. Thin oversight lets those conditions persist, and thin or missing insurance means the families they injure have nowhere to turn for recovery.

If your loved one is a resident in a Virginia nursing home, you can ask the facility, in writing, to confirm it carries the liability and professional coverage the state requires, and to provide the certificate. A facility that hesitates has told you something.

Pull the public record. The federal Care Compare website publishes inspection results, deficiencies, penalties, and ownership for every Medicare or Medicaid certified nursing home. Independent databases republish the same inspection reports in a form that is easy to search. For a facility with a troubled history, that record is extensive and becomes evidence if a claim is filed.

If your loved one was injured, move quickly to preserve the paper and electronic trail. Federal law gives residents and their representatives the right to inspect and copy the medical record, so request the complete chart in writing: nursing notes, the care plan, the Minimum Data Set assessments, medication records, wound care documentation, weight logs, and any incident, fall, or abuse reports. Photograph injuries and conditions with dates. Write down what you saw, when, and the names of staff. You can also file a complaint with the Office of Licensure and Certification inside the Virginia Department of Health, which investigates complaints and can generate citations that join the facility's record.