A nursing home that keeps spending money for its residents is holding other people’s cash, and federal law makes securing it a condition of taking Medicare or Medicaid: the facility must purchase a surety bond, or otherwise provide assurance satisfactory to the Secretary, covering all personal funds of residents deposited with the facility. In Minnesota the filing goes to the Minnesota Department of Health, which licenses nursing homes and surveys them on behalf of CMS. Our premium is priced at 1% of the bond amount, with a $100 minimum; the application collects no credit information, and most applications approve instantly.
















Licensure and certification run on the agency’s clock. The bond does not — once the business office has pulled the highest balance off the resident trust ledger, this is the quickest item on the checklist:
Your facility name, the city and county the facility sits in, your own county, the bond amount your resident trust balances support, and an effective date. That is the entire application — no financial statements and no credit section.
Your price is final at checkout — 1% of the bond amount, with a $100 minimum. The application collects no credit information, and most applications approve instantly. If a check ever runs, it is a soft pull that will not affect your score.
Your executed bond and power of attorney arrive by email, ready to file with the Minnesota Department of Health and to hand a surveyor who asks to see proof of the assurance. Wet-ink originals mailed on request.
Residents hand the business office their spending money because it is easier than keeping cash in a shared room — and because many of them cannot police the account themselves. Federal law treats that as a trust worth bonding. Sections 1819(c)(6)(B) and 1919(c)(6)(B) of the Social Security Act, implemented at 42 C.F.R. § 483.10(f)(10) under the heading assurance of financial security, make it a condition of participating in Medicare or Medicaid that the facility purchase a surety bond, or otherwise provide assurance satisfactory to the Secretary, to assure the security of all personal funds of residents deposited with the facility. Surveyors cite it as F570, and in Minnesota those surveyors work for the Department of Health.
The reach is wider than most administrators expect. It is not limited to the personal needs allowance — any resident money entrusted to the facility belongs inside the assurance, refundable deposit fees included. Neither the federal rule nor Minnesota’s own sets a formula for the dollar amount; a prudent practice is to bond to the largest balance the trust account is likely to carry, not an average and not last month’s figure. Federal guidance is equally clear about what does not count: self-insurance is not an acceptable substitute, neither is pointing at FDIC coverage on the bank account, and the facility cannot be the beneficiary of its own assurance. It is a three-party instrument — you as principal, the surety, and the State of Minnesota through the Department of Health as obligee, with the residents as the protected parties. It is not insurance for you: if the surety pays, you reimburse the surety.
Minnesota layers its own housekeeping rules on top, in the Resident Personal Funds Account parts of the nursing home rule. No funds may be taken for safekeeping without written authorization from the resident or the resident’s guardian, conservator, representative payee, or written designee, and a copy stays in the record. Resident money may never be commingled with the nursing home’s funds, may not be used for the home or for another resident, and must be kept free of any liability the home incurs. Balances over $100 go into a separate interest-bearing account with the interest credited to the resident, and a pooled account has to account separately for each resident’s share. On discharge the funds and a written accounting go back against a signed receipt — within five business days for money held outside the home — and on death they are conveyed with a final accounting to whoever administers the estate. Assisted living facilities are licensed separately under Minnesota Statutes chapter 144G; this bond belongs to the nursing home file.
These are the actual issuing fields — the facility name, the city and county where it operates, your own county, and the bond amount. No credit section, because this application does not collect credit information, and your exact price is set at the application from a $100 minimum.
Start the application →Premiums from $100, no credit section, and the bond issues the moment you pay. Enter your highest resident trust balance and file with the Department the same day. Free until issued.