Yoga Instructor Liability Insurance: What is It?
Insurance companies primarily offer yoga teacher liability insurance as a general liability insurance policy. And so, many say that liability insurance and general liability insurance are synonymous. However, this isn’t the case. Liability insurance is actually a broad term for specific insurance policies that will protect you against third-party or employee claims. Liability policies included in yoga instructor insurance are:
General liability insurance
Professional liability insurance
Employer’s liability insurance
General Liability Insurance for Yoga Instructors
An accident might happen in your yoga class and hurt someone. The injured person might hold you liable if the accident caused property damage or personal injuries. Personal injury claims and property damage claims are very costly. Attorney fees are $250 per hour (minimum) and settlements will cost $3,000 - $75,000. But note that, in terms of settlements, costs can quickly scale from $100,000 to $1 million or something even higher if the property damage or personal injury of the aggrieved party is severe.
The job of general liability insurance is to cover most of the cost you’ll need to shoulder to wrap up personal injury claims and property damage claims. In practice, this insurance policy will pay for your defense costs and settlements to the plaintiff.
Personal injury claims and property damage claims aren’t the only exposures general liability insurance covers. It provides more protection against specific exposures if you decide to add these optional policies:
Advertising injury coverage
Rented premises liability coverage
Products and completed operations coverage
Advertising injury coverage is an optional policy in general liability insurance that will take care of defense costs and settlements if someone sues you for slander, copyright infringement, libel, and other forms of reputational harm.
Rented premises liability coverage is the optional policy that will be useful if you’re just renting a studio or any other space to conduct yoga classes. If the space is destroyed or damaged, rented premises liability coverage will get the building repaired on your behalf or reimburse the landlord.
The last optional policy - products and completed operations coverage - will cover personal injury claims and property damage claims filed by past clients. This is useful in a situation where a former student developed injuries after attending your yoga class.
How Much Can Yoga Instructors Get from General Liability Insurance?
The insurance money you can get from general liability insurance is $1 million - $2 million. This is the amount most insurance companies provide in coverage. But still, a few insurance companies offer general liability insurance having a $200,000 - $500,000 limit.
Do You Need General Liability Insurance to Work for Yoga Studios?
Studios won’t hire you as a contractual teacher if you don’t have general liability insurance offering $1 million in coverage. General liability insurance is required so that you can add the yoga studio as an additional insured. And once added as an additional insured, any claims filed against the yoga studio will be taken care of by your general liability insurance.
Yoga Teacher Professional Liability Insurance
Yoga teacher professional liability insurance (PLI) can protect you, your reputation, and your bank account from customer claims and lawsuits. Also known as professional indemnity insurance (PII), or more widely as errors & omissions (E&O) insurance, this yoga ins coverage type covers the total cost of legal defense against any negligence claim filed by a customer, as well as any damages that are awarded on such a lawsuit.
Do Yoga Teachers Need Professional Liability Insurance to Work for Yoga Studios?
Professional liability insurance isn’t a common requirement if you’re applying as a contractual worker in yoga studios. But still, purchase this and pair with general liability so that you’ll have absolute protection from customer claims. By the way, the amount of insurance money you’ll get from professional liability insurance is $1 million - $2 million.
Employer’s Liability Insurance for Yoga Instructors
Employer’s liability insurance will be useful if you have assistants. Your assistants might get hurt while working and accuse you of being negligent. In connection, employer’s liability insurance will take care of defense costs and settlements.
Yoga Studio Business Insurance
The exposures in running a yoga studio are more numerous than the exposures when you’re only working as an instructor. Having general liability insurance, professional liability insurance, and employer’s liability insurance won’t be enough. You’ll need other business insurance policies such as:
Commercial property insurance
Business interruption insurance
Abuse and molestation insurance
Workers compensation insurance
Yoga Studio Commercial Property Insurance
Your yoga studio might be destroyed or damaged because of fire, lightning, theft, vandalism, and other covered perils. That’s why you need to protect it with commercial property insurance. If your yoga studio gets destroyed or damaged, commercial property insurance will shoulder the projected reconstruction or repair expenses.
In addition, business equipment and tools coverage is an optional policy in commercial property insurance that will reimburse your losses if speakers, mp3 players, and other items classified as business tools and equipment become damaged because of fire, theft, vandalism, and other covered perils.
Business Interruption Insurance for Yoga Studios
Of course, you’ll have to stop operations momentarily to make way for building repair and reconstruction. If you’re worried about the income you would’ve earned to pay employee wages, loans, and other operational costs, get business interruption insurance.
Business interruption insurance gives an allowance to your business for 30 - 360 days. This allowance will be equal to a portion of or the full value of your yoga studio's average revenue. If you have business interruption insurance, you won’t incur losses when paying employee wages, loans, taxes, and other operational costs while the yoga studio isn’t generating income.
Can Independent Yoga Teachers Get Business Interruption Insurance?
Independent yoga teachers and other related professions such as spin instructors can’t purchase business interruption insurance. Business interruption insurance is for full-fledged business only. Nonetheless, insurance companies offer something equivalent to business interruption insurance - loss of income coverage.
Loss of income coverage supplements 60% - 80% of a yoga teacher's lost income if he or she can’t work because of an injury. You’ll receive insurance money from loss of income coverage for 30 days, or maybe even 360 days with an endorsement.
Abuse and Molestation Insurance
Abuse and molestation insurance will be absolutely valuable if your dance studio enrolls kids. There are many instances of yoga instructors doing something with children, and it’s highly possible for the same scenario to happen in your business. Abuse and molestation insurance will see to it that - in case your business is held responsible after one of the kids is verbally abused, offensively touched, raped, or manhandled - no losses will be incurred when paying for defense costs and settlements.
Workers Compensation Insurance for Yoga Studios
Though not many know this, yoga can be a very perilous practice, especially for teachers. Here’s a report that proves this point:
At 3:30 p.m. on November 19, 2014, a yoga instructor was conducting a 75-minute hot yoga class where the room temperature was approximately 95 Fahrenheit. The instructor collapsed about 45 minutes after class and was taken by an emergency vehicle to a nearby hospital where she died one hour later. Further examination by a medical official attributed her death to natural causes.
The example only talks about heat exhaustion. However, heat exhaustion isn’t the only peril in the lives of yoga teachers. Others are repetitive motion injuries, overuse injuries, strain injuries, and many more.
Whether a regular, contractual, or seasonal employee, you’ll have to pay for the hospitalization, treatment, and lost income compensation of a yoga teacher. Workers compensation will make sure that you don’t spend a single penny. It will take care of the injured or sick yoga teacher’s needs on your behalf.
Workers compensation insurance is a requirement if you want to operate your yoga studio legally. Not purchasing this will result in fines or imprisonment. If no carrier is willing to cover you with workers compensation insurance, qualify for your state's risk pool. You can also ask the workers compensation department to enroll you in a self-insurance program.
Do I Need Yoga Insurance for Online Classes?
Many yoga teachers started online businesses during the pandemic. However, it is still important to purchase insurance for teaching yoga online. Although the risks are a lot lower than yoga classes that are being done physically in a studio or outdoor, there’s always the chance that you could have a dissatisfied customer who wants to take their anger out on you, and that's exactly what online yoga insurance coverage is for, it is also cheaper in most cases.
Online yoga insurance includes general liability insurance. However, its most important feature is the presence of cyber liability coverage.
If you’re running a website for yoga classes, you’ll greatly appreciate having cyber liability policy included in teaching yoga online insurance. Cyber liability insurance will cover defense costs and settlements after affected parties filed a claim, because your website got breached and sensitive information was leaked.
Yoga Insurance Cost
In general, yoga studio insurance cost will be more expensive than online yoga teacher insurance cost. As a physical studio, there’s more risk involved as your students are in your space, using your equipment.
That said, here's a breakdown of the average premium costs for different tailored yoga business insurance plans:
| Type | Cost Per Month | Cost Per Year |
|---|
| Yoga teacher insurance | $17 | $200 |
| Yoga studio insurance | $46 | $550 |
| Online yoga insurance | $13 | $130 |
| Outdoor yoga insurance | $46 | $550 |
| Aerial Yoga insurance | $29 | $350 |
In addition, we’ve made another table showing the pricing of the best yoga insurance companies:
| Cost per Month | Cost per Year | Best for |
|---|
| CoverWallet | $8 | $96 | Yoga teacher insurance quotes comparison online |
| Thimble | $10.21 | $122.52 | On-demand yoga insurance by the hour, weeks, days, or months |
| NEXT | $11.62 | $139.44 | Yoga insurance with certificate of insurance you can send as a text message, email, or share as social media post |
| Hiscox | $16.21 | $194.52 | Liability insurance for yoga studios |
| State Farm | $19 | $228 | Large yoga studios |
| Yoga Alliance | $20 | $240 | Great for personal yoga instructors and studio instructors alike |
| Beyogi Yoga | $22 | $264 | Personal teachers and online yoga instructors |
| Alliant Yoga | $25 | $300 | Individuals who’ve been certified through Yoga Alliance |
| Yoga Journal | $26 | $312 | Full-time and part-time yoga instructors |
| Philadelphia | $30 | $360 | Online yoga teachers and part-time instructors |
| NACAMS Yoga | $33 | $396 | Group yoga instructors and studio teachers |
| Alternative Balance | $36 | $432 | Business owners who want to own their own studio |
