A personal trainer is working to help someone become their physical best. Perhaps someone is recovering from fitness injuries or simply trying to lose weight. Your personal training business is helping people transform. You may not be like a typical business with a storefront and extensive overhead—but there are risks involved in running the business. That’s why you need personal trainer insurance coverage.
What is Personal Trainer Insurance?
Personal trainer insurance protects you in the day-to-day tasks of your business, from personal training to giving nutrition recommendations. Personal training insurance protects you, your business, and your clients.
Why Does a Personal Training Business Need Insurance Coverage?
You may not think insurance coverage is necessary for your profession. After all, you don’t typically own a building or sell products. But you do face risks in your business that insurance can protect you from. A personal trainer can get injured when they move exercise equipment. A client can sue if he or she gets injured during the routine and thinks it is the personal trainer’s fault.
A woman who had a personal training session at a major name brand fitness location was severely injured when she was catapulted into the air by a machine. She broke her hip and sued the gym for $750,000—and won. A client injury like this can easily put a small business in jeopardy and be financially devastating. Fortunately, if you get the right personal trainer insurance policy, your business can keep going through many types of adversity.
Secondly, if you work for a gym as a certified personal trainer, most require you to obtain a basic liability insurance policy and provide them proof of insurance alongside a personal trainer certification. Who all needs insurance coverage?
- Personal trainers
- Fitness instructors
- Group fitness instructors
- Rehabilitative professional (sports medicine)
- Health coaches
Insurance Personal Trainers Need
There are a few personal trainer insurance policies you should consider to provide coverage for your business.
Personal Trainer Liability Insurance
Businesses with a physical location are at risk of clients coming on their property and getting injured. Gyms, particularly, have a lot of hazards that a client might sue over if they are injured. General liability insurance, or ‘trip and fall insurance,’ covers third-party bodily injury claims, third-party property damage, and advertising injury (libel, slander, copyright infringement).
This could involve things like a client slipping and falling on a wet gym floor. It could involve a trainer causing property damage in a client’s home, or a class action lawsuit being filed against you for misleading advertising. General liability protects you in your day-to-day operations.
General liability coverage also pays for the costs of defense and covering liability claims. Many general liability policies cover a standard $1 million per occurrence, but types of specific situations and coverage limits could vary by the insurance company.
Professional Liability Insurance
Professional liability insurance—often referred to as errors and omissions insurance—is important to fitness professionals because you provide a service. You instruct clients on how to use heavy exercise equipment and give them recommendations on certain diets to follow, foods to eat, or products to use. Unhappy clients can sue you over perceived negligence or mistakes.
A client can claim that you instructed them how to use a weight machine incorrectly and that it was your neglect that led to their injury. They may also state that you gave them harmful dietary advice. In either case, professional liability coverage will pay these claims. Most insurance companies will provide legal representation and cover any related legal expenses or settlements.
Business Owner’s Policy
A Business Owner’s Policy (BOP) may be an affordable way for you to bundle coverage. A typical BOP includes general liability insurance, commercial property coverage, and business interruption insurance. Business interruption insurance can help you cover the financial burden of keeping your gym open if property damage claims leave you unable to fully operate.
In some cases, it can be more affordable than purchasing each individual coverage separately. Some insurance companies in the industry may include other insurance policies unique to personal trainers.
Product Liability Insurance
Personal trainers may provide their own equipment when they work with a client. Or perhaps they train clients in a home gym. If a piece of defective equipment injures someone, you can be at risk of being sued. If you provide clients with a product or supplement and they become sick or ill from it, they may find you at fault. Product liability insurance can step in to cover the cost of those claims (including legal costs, medical expenses, and settlements).
Workers’ Compensation Insurance
If you own a gym with a group of personal trainers, you may be required to obtain Workers’ compensation insurance. Workers’ comp covers medical costs and lost wages of employees if they are injured while at work. Many states legally require any business that hires employees to get worker’s compensation insurance. Plus, you don’t want to get stuck footing the bill for an expensive bodily injury.
Medical Insurance
A fitness instructor handles heavy equipment in crowded environments. Sometimes the equipment is slippery or covered in bacteria, and the trainers can wind up getting injured or sick. The long hours can also wear you down, and most personal trainers want to be healthy for their clients. If you are the only one in your company, you will want medical insurance to cover you if you become ill or injured.
Get a Personal Trainer Insurance Quote Now
Tivly understands how important your business is to you, how important it is to your business to be properly insured, and how important it is to bring you peace of mind. That’s why we help you find all the quotes you need to decide on the best policies for your situation.
Get a quote here.
Click here for more details on financing options or call 214-629-7223 or email jthomas@fmconsulting.net for more information. Or, apply now.
An Outsourced CEO and expert witness, Jim Thomas is the founder and president of Fitness Management USA Inc., a management consulting, turnaround, financing and brokerage firm specializing in the gym and sports industry. With more than 25 years of experience owning, operating and managing clubs of all sizes, Thomas lectures and delivers seminars, webinars and workshops across the globe on the practical skills required to successfully overcome obscurity, improve sales, build teamwork and market fitness programs and products. Visit his Web site at: www.fmconsulting.net or www.youtube.com/gymconsultant.
