The Yoga Chat: Who Needs Yoga Insurance?

Yoga teachers know that first time students require extra attention and slower, less complicated sequences in order to start their yoga journey. In short order, the body adapts and students progress, especially under the guidance of a seasoned yoga teacher. Advanced students can take on more challenging vinyasas and continue in their practice of strengthening mind and body. Many yoga teachers will handle a variety of levels simultaneously, which can affect insurance needs.

Today’s yoga practice deep dive looks to answer who needs yoga teacher insurance depending on what stage of the yoga journey they are in. From yoga students to experienced yogis, we will see which yoga insurance best meets the needs of each level of yoga professional.

Do You Need Insurance During Yoga Teacher Training?

Yoga teacher training to become a registered yoga teacher (RTT) or similarly recognized professional is an exciting time in the life of an aspiring yoga teacher. Attending school means you have finally made the decision to invest your time, money, focus, and being into becoming a yoga teacher. For most, this desire comes from having been in yoga for a while and truly wanting to make a career of teaching others yoga. The reasons for starting your yoga training can be wonderful, but the question of yoga insurance is one that not every student considers. Yoga training usually involves some blend of classroom instruction, online learning, and hands-on modules. 

Whenever you start working with the general public, there is always something called liability present. Liability is the risk of having to pay for something. This may mean using an incorrect technique that injures someone or even having your yoga accessories stolen right before you had to go to class. The risk of loss is a real possibility even during yoga training which is why yoga teacher students need to be thinking about insurance from day one. 

Yoga insurance is an instant wall you put up around your career to help pay for an unfortunate event instead of you paying out of your own bank account. Now, yoga insurance is definitely not all created equal so you need to be savvy about what type of insurance will actually provide the protection you need for your unique set up. With beYogi, we make one of the toughest, most-flexible types of yoga insurance around. The best news is that this insurance is available just for students in yoga training at a steeply discounted rate. But once the one year yoga student plan is up, what comes next? We’ll take a look at what first time yoga teachers need to be mindful of as they begin their practice.

Yoga Insurance First Time Yoga Teachers 

First time yoga teachers are again a typically very excited bunch. You may have just completed that 200-hour RYT training curriculum and are eager to share everything you have learned with your new students. But transitioning from yoga training classes with minimal interaction with the general public, to exclusively offering your services to your own students takes some planning. We’ll look at the business side of yoga and how insurance fits into that a little further down but for now just remember how crucial yoga insurance is for new yoga teachers. 

That’s because that very first class full of students is definitely full of liabilities. You could be at the absolute top of your class with all the yoga knowledge in the world and still face a situation that could potentially cost you everything you have worked so hard for. 

Why Yoga Teachers Need Insurance From Day One

Let’s look at an example: you are a brand new teacher, renting space at your local yoga studio to start holding classes. You’ve marketed a discounted rate for your “grand opening” classes and you get 20 people to show up on day one. You have health questionnaires, talk to each student about the class, and lead an extremely conscientious beginners’ class that everyone says was an absolute hit and can’t wait to see you again.

You have a great couple weeks until you get served notice that a student from your very first class saying they were hurt during the class, had to get medical treatment and physical therapy, missed work, and incurred additional transportation costs to get to and from their appointments. The demand is for tens of thousands of dollars and you decide you need an attorney. At the end of the day, this unfortunate event could easily run into the hundreds of thousands with attorneys fees. 

If you didn’t have yoga insurance in place on day one, this would all be coming out of your own pocket. What’s the flip side? For just $179 per year, you can have millions in insurance coverage for whatever “what if” comes your way. 

What Seasoned Yoga Pro’s Need in An Insurance Plan

As we progress through our yoga practice and start taking on more advanced classes and students, the stakes are simply higher for the risk of an accident. Simply put, the longer you are teaching yoga the greater chance there is that something undue will occur. It’s like driving, if you barely drive, there’s not much risk of an accident. If you are an Uber driver that hits the streets every single day, there’s a greater chance. The same goes for yoga teachers that have been in the game awhile. 

Having yoga insurance needs to be an absolute necessity to your practice if you want to make sure your career is protected for the long haul. But experienced yoga teachers have different needs than yoga student teachers and first time yoga teachers. So how do you pick a yoga plan to best meet these needs at this stage in your journey? In this day and age, it’s easy to search for “best yoga insurance” online and see a hundred results in an instant. We’ve made an easy comparison page if you want to save time on back and forth clicking but basically there’s three tenets of yoga insurance that you need to be mindful of when comparing your options.

• How much is the yoga insurance plan?
  The first thing on every yogi's mind when it comes to insurance is typically how much it is and this definitely needs to be a part of your consideration. While price alone shouldn’t be the only factor you look at (super cheap plans can mean no coverage), it needs to be up there. At $179 per year for professionals, beYogi stands as one of the most affordable and best-outfitted plans available today. 

• How much coverage does the yoga insurance provide?
  You need to see ample coverage amounts for general, professional, and product liability. Our plans go further than most with rental damage, stolen equipment, and even identity protection also included. 

• What exactly is covered?
  Make sure your yoga plan covers what you teach, many only apply to a small number of modalities. Conversely, beYogi covers hundreds.

Savvy shoppers get better deals and shopping yoga insurance is no different. Know what you’re getting to make sure your plan is truly all-inclusive.

How Yoga Insurance Helps Build a Better Business 

Building a great yoga business that can sustain you and from which you can make a fruitful living starts with good business fundamentals. Yoga insurance is a crucial part of your risk management strategy which means you can be thinking long term from day one. But beYogi’s yoga insurance takes it a step further even beyond great protection with a great suite of benefits that support you and your practice, and really ups the value that you receive for the investment you're making in the plan. 

Having this sort of investor mindset in making sure that you are maximizing value across your business is how you can build a more resilient business model. There will almost certainly be downturns in the economy and various other calamities that make it harder for you to operate. Having a business plan that includes insurance is how you can better weather the storm. 

Beyogi’s benefits plan starts with access to vast libraries of online learning just for yoga teachers. There’s pose information, sequencing tips, business ideas, and more all curated by the best yoga teachers in the business. Beyond that, our members get tons of special discounts and early access opportunities on yoga and business products and services and even a free website. It’s been professionally designed to stand out and be easy for yoga teachers to take advantage of. Since online content is one of the most effective and economical ways you can engage your user base, this website can prove invaluable for growing your yoga studio. 

Is Online Yoga Insurance a Thing?

With yoga insurance from beYogi only running $179 per year, the cost of a plan is a great value for what’s received no matter what stage of yoga you find yourself in. Better yet, signing up takes minutes and can be done completely online.