Fitness instructors are a unique case in the insurance world. An individual who sustains an injury in a grocery store might not have anyone to blame but themselves, an employee who doesn’t follow proper safety protocol might not be eligible for worker’s compensation, but if you’re a fitness instructor, whether you work in a gym or with clients at their own homes, your client’s body is your place of business. Even in the most demanding blue collar job, your aim is to reduce physical effort so as to minimize the risk of injury. When exercising, you could say that injury is the whole point: You don’t build muscle without breaking it down through exhaustive, rigorous activity.
A good trainer knows how to tax their customers in the correct way. But, there are those moments where a customer might have failed to mention that old knee injury they sustained in high school, or they might push themselves a little too hard without giving you a chance to rein them in, or maybe they simply slipped a little while lifting a heavy weight. Whatever the cause, the fact is that any serious fitness program carries with it the risk of injury. A person working with an instructor is less likely to suffer a serious injury than someone who’s just “winging it,” but the risk can never be completely eradicated, and that’s where fitness instructor insurance comes in. On top of this, you have liability concerns like damage to the premises (one of the reasons some personal trainers won’t do house calls). If someone sets a weight down a little too hard, you might be looking at hundreds of dollars in repairs to the flooring. There is even a chance that you may be held responsible for a manufacturing error on the part of the companies where you buy your equipment.
In short: Every risk you take running a business, multiply them by about ten, and that’s the liability issues you’re looking at when your job is helping people pursue their fitness goals. “Comprehensive” is the magic word when setting up your policy, whether you’re insuring your own home-call business or buying gym instructor insurance for a full staff. Study your policy, and make sure every possibility is covered, because it’s not just your business that’s at risk, you’re also taking responsibility for the body and the health of every single customer that you or your employees work with.
