If you are starting work as a personal trainer, you are probably wondering whether you need to take out insurance policies for your business.
The short answer to this question is “yes.” Personal trainers do require insurance. In this post, we will explain why insurance is necessary in this profession. We will also go over the types of personal trainer insurance and the factors that can impact costs.
Looking for quotes? Scroll down to the bottom of this post and fill out the quick form to receive free quotes for personal trainer insurance.
Do Personal Trainers Need Insurance?
Here is an example of what can go wrong when you are operating a personal trainer business.
A 28-year-old woman in New York City was working with a personal trainer at a gym. She was wearing a weight vest while on a stair climber, and said she was in pain. Her trainer thought she was fine, and urged her to continue. She ended up requiring surgery for a lumbar spine injury, after which she successfully sued for $2.25 million.
No matter how well you understand the human body, you take risks as a personal trainer. Sometimes you may make mistakes. When you do, they can be really expensive.
- As in the example above, you might sometimes be negligent or give bad advice, resulting in your client getting injured.
- Maybe you tell your client to follow a specific diet as part of their training, but that diet turns out to make them sick because of a health condition you did not know about.
- Equipment you provide your client to use could malfunction, resulting in injury.
- Your client could be injured after the session is over, but blame the injury on overtraining.
- Your client’s property could be damaged as a result of a mishap.
- Someone could steal your equipment or damage it.
- You yourself could be injured on the job.
- One of your employees could be injured on the job.
- While driving to or from work, you could get into an accident.
Sometimes, you might not even agree that what happened is what the client claims happened.
You may feel you gave reasonable advice, but that your client misinterpreted it or did not communicate clearly with you.
But even if you think the injury or damage was their fault, a court may disagree. If so, you will be liable.
Your liabilities could include:
- Medical bills
- Costs to repair or replace damaged property
- Legal fees
- Lost wages
Sometimes the medical bills could be long-term in nature.
With so much at stake, it simply is not worth it to operate as a personal trainer without insurance.
Personal Training Business Insurance Requirements
Another consideration is that you might need insurance to operate your business at all.
Perhaps you want to work at a gym, for example. The gym may not allow you to work as a personal trainer under their roof if you do not carry certain types of insurance (usually liability insurance). Similarly, a landlord may not let you rent space for your own gym if you do not have commercial property insurance. That brings us to the next section.
Types of Insurance For Personal Trainers
There are a number of different types of insurance policies that can be helpful to carry as a personal trainer. Let’s go over them now.
- General liability insurance for personal trainers. This type of insurance is often referred as “trip and fall insurance.” Let’s say your client stumbles over gym equipment and gets injured. That is something general liability insurance would cover. Another example would be if your client drops a weight in their house while you are with them, breaking their priceless vase. Here, too, general liability insurance could cover the damages.
- Professional liability insurance. This type of insurance is also called “errors and omissions insurance.” This is the type of insurance that can pay out if you are sued for giving a client bad advice that results in injury or other suffering.
- Product liability insurance. This is a type of policy that may pay out if a product you provided causes a client to get sick or injured. It could be gym equipment, a supplement, etc.
- Business interruption insurance. If an injury or equipment failure causes you to be unable to perform work for a period of time, business interruption insurance will help to cover the profits you lost.
- Commercial property insurance. Should there be damage to your own business property, you can cover costs for repairs or replacements using this type of insurance.
- Business owner’s policy (BOP). This type of policy bundles together general liability insurance with business interruption insurance and commercial property insurance. Bundling together policies as part of a BOP often helps you save money.
- Workers’ compensation insurance. If you have one or more employees, your state may require that you purchase workers’ compensation insurance to operate. This insurance will pay out if an employee gets sick or injured on the job. It can help cover medical costs and lost wages.
- Cybersecurity insurance. If you will have intake forms or accept payments online for your personal training business, cybersecurity insurance can protect you from the fallout of a hack or data breach.
Note that along with these policies specific to your business, you should also carry a personal medical insurance policy and automobile insurance policy.
These will help protect you if you yourself are injured or if you get into an accident driving to or from your job. If the vehicle you are driving is specifically for business, you can cover it with commercial auto insurance.
Exactly what fitness trainer coverage options you need for your business will depend on where you operate, what services you offer, what hazards you expect, how many people you employ, and more.
How Can You Avoid Making Personal Trainer Insurance Claims?
As we will discuss below in our section on costs, the fewer claims you have to make, the less expensive your personal trainer insurance tends to be.
Here are a few tips that can help you operate safely and minimize your claims:
- Get certified. During the certification process, you can learn safe and effective techniques to use with your clients.
- Continuing education. Even after you start serving clients as a personal trainer, you should continue to research and train yourself. Knowledge in this field is constantly evolving and expanding. The more you learn over the years ahead, the safer services you will be able to offer your clients.
- Keep your head in the game. If you lose focus for even a second as a personal trainer, the results can be catastrophic. It is important to make sure you are always paying close attention to everything happening during a session.
- Ask your clients for informed consent. Explain the risks they may take by training, and get their agreement in writing.
- Check equipment regularly. The sooner you can spot potential malfunctions, the less likely they are to actually occur and hurt someone.
- Keep documentation. Make records of everything that happens during your personal training sessions.
- Build relationships. Get to know your clients. Spend time talking with them about their goals. Offer them valuable feedback. The more they see that you genuinely care about their health, safety and progress, the less likely they are to take legal action against you if something goes wrong.
What Factors Impact the Cost of Personal Training Insurance?
There is a wide price range for how much it costs to insure a personal trainer business. Here are some of the factors that will impact how much you will pay.
- The types of policies you choose. Someone who is just purchasing general and professional liability insurance will not spend as much as somebody who chooses to purchase all of the types of fitness instructor insurance we discussed above.
- The company you pick. Every company out there is going to give you different quotes for each type of insurance for personal trainers. You can save by going with the most affordable companies. Of course, you may not want to choose cheap personal training insurance; companies that offer more comprehensive policies may charge you more, but they also will be providing you with better coverage.
- The coverage limits you select. The higher the coverage limits for your personal trainer insurance policies, the more expensive those policies will be. But if the worst should come to pass, they may save you money in the long run.
- Where you will be operating. Depending on whether you will be operating in your own gym space, another company’s gym, your home, your clients’ homes, public outdoor spaces, or other locations, your costs may vary. Each of these locations carries a different set of risks.
- How many employees you will have and your payroll. These are factor that will impact how much you will have to pay for workers’ compensation insurance. The bigger the payroll, the more expensive workers’ comp insurance will be.
- Your revenue. Personal trainers who earn higher revenues also pay higher insurance costs.
- Your property value. If you are insuring commercial property, how expensive it is depends on how much the property you are covering is worth. Expensive rowing machines, for example, will cost more to insure than a few basic dumbbells.
- Your certifications. If you carry a certification as a personal trainer, insurance companies may see you as presenting a lower risk than if you did not. Consider certification from the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). NASM insurance also is quite affordable.
- Your services. The exact nature of your services may impact the risks you and your clients face, and thus your insurance costs. A yoga or pilates instructor may have different costs than a weight training instructor, for example. A personal trainer for a boxer may have different costs than a personal trainer for a swimmer.
- Your claim history. If you have made prior claims, your insurance rates can rise as a personal trainer. But if you are with a company for a long time without making any claims, you might receive a discount on your rates.
- Bundling policies. If you bundle together multiple policies, you can save. That might include multiple personal trainer insurance policies, or personal insurance trainer policies bundled with regular personal insurance policies if the company offers both.
It is vital to shop around for different quotes rather than going with the first insurance company you find.
That is the key to saving on personal trainers insurance no matter your needs.
Where to Find Online Personal Trainers Insurance Quotes
Are you ready to find the affordable personal trainer insurance you need now to operate your business?
To make it fast and easy for you to compare quotes from different companies, we have put together the quick form below. You compare and you save in one simple step.
