When Adriana Mancilla first became a foster parent, she thought she’d only do it for a couple of years. Her family had a three-bedroom house in Sylmar and three of their own biological children.

But 22 years and 150 kids later, she’s still caring for foster children. Three bedrooms have expanded to six.

“What I’ve learned is that it could be possible to help,” she said. “It's already hard enough for them to be apart from their families. So, it's like, try to give them the comfort that they need when they're going through those hard times.”

Mancilla is a foster parent through Aviva Family and Children's Services, one of dozens of foster family agencies that contract with Los Angeles County to recruit, certify, and support foster parents — often for high-needs children. Statewide, these agencies care for about 9,000 foster children. But the agency, and many others across the state, are on the brink of losing their ability to operate after a major insurer has decided to pull out of the market.

Earlier this year, the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California (NIAC), which it says insures about 90% of the market, announced it was not renewing plans starting Oct. 1, citing a rise in litigation costs. Without liability insurance, these foster family agencies cannot operate foster homes.

Aviva’s insurance expires Nov. 1, which has left them with little time to try to find a solution for the 40 foster families and the children in their care.

“The last thing that we need for these kids that have experienced trauma, that have experienced abuse, is for them to continue to get churned through the child welfare system and move from home to home to home,” said Amber Rivas, Aviva’s president and CEO.

Foster agencies scramble for solutions

Agencies have three options.

Option 1: Try to find a new insurer, which has been difficult. Rivas says they received one quote that was up to 650% higher than what they currently pay in premiums.

“That number would represent nearly 50% of our entire annual FFA budget, which is just completely unaffordable. … It would essentially bankrupt our program,” Rivas said.

Option 2: Transfer the families to another agency that doesn’t have NIAC insurance.

But the capacity of other foster family agencies in the county is limited.

“Agencies that don't have NIAC insurance couldn't necessarily absorb the whole system. We would need more agencies to obtain alternative insurance or potentially merge with other FFAs who have the alternative insurance in order to keep our system whole and growing,” said Kym Renner, deputy director of L.A. County’s Department of Children and Family Services.

Option 3: Transfer them to the county. The process to transfer to the county or another agency is known as “porting” and it takes time and paperwork. (The governor signed a bill in September aimed at easing this process).

Renner said while the county has some capacity to take on families, it’s “not ideal … We need our FFA system and all of the support that they offer and provide for families.”

About 1,800 children are served through these agencies in the county, and up to 600 children could be affected within the next two months, according to county officials. But because of the insurance crisis, not all agencies are deciding to keep their doors open.

One agency’s decision to close

Debbie Manners, president and CEO of Sycamores, which also had a November expiration date, decided to shutter its foster family program. The agency also provides mental health services in Los Angeles and Riverside counties.

“It was clear to us that we wouldn't find a company that would insure us if we didn't close the FFA. So we made the very, very painful, difficult decision to do that,” she said.

The agency is currently in the process of transferring six families to other agencies.

“They’re devastated. We have some families we've had since 1998,” she said. “It's been so difficult because the families are attached to us and to our staff. It's very painful.”

Foster care advocates fear if the insurance issue is not resolved — and if families can’t be “ported” — children will end up being displaced.

“The worst case scenario is that the children end up in either a different environment or end up in a residential program where they don't necessarily need to be,” said Christine Stoner-Mertz, CEO of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, which represents about 100 foster family agencies in the state.

Advocates for foster youth say that placement instability leads to worse educational outcomes, and more behavioral and mental health issues.

Last year, an investigation by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and L.A. Times found hundreds of children were placed in hotels due to the shortage of placements in the county.

An L.A. County spokesperson said the county no longer uses hotels “as temporary placement options for children and young people and remains committed to exploring innovative solutions to effectively address this important issue.”

How did the insurance crisis start?

Jodi Kurata, CEO of the Association of Community Human Service Agencies (ACHSA), which represents agencies in L.A. County, said NIAC’s decision to leave the market might not even be the end of the insurance problem.

“If the underlying insurability problems that originally got us to this place are not fixed in some way, it is only a matter of time before we find ourselves in the second wave of insurers leaving the market, similar to what NIAC felt that it had to do,” she said.

Pamela Davis, the CEO of Nonprofits Insurance Alliance, which includes NIAC, said recent trends in litigation had become “unsustainable,” and they were paying out lawsuit settlements where they believe the nonprofits are not at fault. The group says it covers foster agencies responsible for about 7,900 foster homes.

In December, a Sonoma County jury awarded $25 million to three children who were sexually abused by their foster parent. The foster family agency involved was on the hook for 60%; the case is currently on appeal.

Davis said insuring foster family agencies differs from insuring other welfare organizations like group homes or shelters because a child is in another home where the nonprofit cannot be monitoring them 24/7.

“This is a very special case where the state has decided it's in the best interest of these children to have them in a home environment. But that is a different model, it's a different risk, and you cannot guarantee that an individual that's been approved as a foster parent will not conduct an unforeseeable criminal act,” she said.

NIAC tried to push state legislation this year that they said would have made FFAs “insurable,” including provisions that would have limited their legal exposure from harms caused by a third party. Children’s rights advocates opposed the bill, arguing it would make it harder for children abused in the system get justice, and the bill was amended.

One family’s future

For Adriana Mancilla, she hopes she can stay with Aviva. She and her husband currently foster two boys — one in eighth grade, who’s been in their family for six years, and a ninth grader, who’s been with them one year.

She often calls Aviva’s 24/7 help line when there’s a crisis, and their social workers are often in her home. She’s always been with a foster family agency in her two decades of fostering, and doesn’t want to be transferred to the county.

“I know that whenever I need something, or something is going on with one of the kids, they respond quickly,” she said.