Reasons Yoga Teachers Need Liability Insurance

Yoga teachers everywhere are much more appreciated nowadays for keeping their facilities clean and safe for students. As an instructor, you play a vital role in fostering health and wellness, even if that role comes with inherent risks. Even the most mindful and experienced instructors can face unexpected challenges like property damage, injuries or client misunderstandings.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Liability insurance protects yoga instructors from unexpected challenges such as injuries, property damage, or client disputes, ensuring their financial security.
• Comprehensive coverage should include general liability (e.g., slip and fall), professional liability (claims related to teaching), and product liability (allergic reactions or product-related issues).
• Holding insurance boosts credibility and can be a requirement for working with studios or clients, solidifying your career opportunities.
• Choose between occurrence form (claims covered after policy expiration) or claims-made coverage, and ensure policy portability across states and teaching formats.
• Many programs, like beYogi, offer valuable extras such as discounts on yoga products, access to health insurance, and identity theft protection.

Liability insurance is an essential safeguard, offering you protection against these uncertainties and, ultimately, giving you peace of mind. Beyond shielding you from financial loss, it ensures you can continue providing valuable services to your students.

Understanding Yoga Liability Insurance

Anyone operating a business that offers services to the general public can encounter a number of different liabilities at some point in their career. Risk management involves recognizing potential risks and taking protective actions ahead of time. Far from being a complicated process, risk management is an effective long-term success strategy any yoga professional can easily integrate into their everyday yoga practice.

Yoga insurance is arguably one of the quickest and most far-reaching risk management strategies a yoga practitioner can undertake. It starts with understanding the different liabilities you can face. You may also be able to deduct this insurance from your taxes as a business expense, which is a potential added bonus.

Why Yoga Instructors Need Insurance

Whether you run a mobile studio, offer virtual classes or are an independent teacher, a comprehensive insurance policy is a good idea. Yoga instructors need insurance to protect themselves from potential legal and financial risks. While yoga is generally a safe and beneficial activity, instructors still face liabilities that can come from unforeseen circumstances. It's a contingency plan that:

• Liability for accidents: Students may suffer injuries during class. Liability insurance helps cover the legal costs, medical expenses and settlement if the student claims the injury was due to the instructor's negligence.
• Protection against lawsuits: Lawsuits can come from a variety of issues, from alleged misconduct to claims of emotional harm. Insurance ensures you have the financial support you need to defend against these legal disputes.
• Professional credibility: Holding insurance demonstrates professionalism and responsibility. Studios and clients often require proof of coverage before allowing instructors to lead classes, making insurance necessary for your career advancement.
• Peace of mind: Having insurance alleviates your stress and anxiety, as you are covered in case of unexpected litigation.

3 Common Types of Yoga Liability 

While yoga instruction focuses on physical and mental harmony, yoga teachers can encounter various forms of liability, each with the potential to disrupt their careers. Understanding these liabilities is crucial to protecting yourself and your livelihood. This knowledge helps you mitigate risks effectively while creating a safe, supportive environment for your students.

1. General Liability

General liability is present for everyone with a physical location as it relates to third-party claims for injuries and damages that occur in or around your business. A yoga studio's general liability insurance is often called “slip and fall insurance” because these types of claims can fall under this broad category. As a business owner and even as a sole proprietor or 1099 independent contractor, you have a responsibility to keep your teaching space relatively safe and free from known hazards. A student slipping on a wet floor and injuring themselves while walking into your studio could be an example of an event that might fall under the provisions of a general liability insurance claim.

2. Professional Liability

Yoga instructors help guide students through many different forms of yoga programs. The types of yoga and skill level of the participants can help dictate the course of the instruction and the difficulty of the poses. One of the biggest variables facing yoga instructors lies in the physicality of the students. The level of fitness, past injuries, conditions, or life events such as pregnancy can dramatically affect how one student responds to a pose versus another. If students push themselves too far and are injured, they may hold their yoga instructor responsible for failing to provide safe instruction. A claim relating to your services falls under professional liability insurance for yoga instructors. 

Comparing Yoga Insurance Programs

There are several elements to pay close attention to when comparing which yoga teacher insurance is right for you. With great coverage, benefits that pay for themselves, and a low, flat rate, yoga insurance is a far better value than taking a chance with your career by foregoing insurance. Even being under-insured from potential liabilities is extremely risky and could leave you footing the bill if a claim ever exceeded your policy’s limits. Always be sure you know just what you’re getting, how much, and how it will apply in the real world with your individual yoga journey.  

Claims Made vs. Occurrence Form

Another important area to look at is the provision of coverage. Yoga insurance will either contain occurrence form coverage or claims-made coverage. With an occurrence form, you can file a claim even if your policy has expired as long as the claim event occurred while the policy was still active. Claims-made is the opposite. It says the policy must be active to file a claim. This might seem like small potatoes, but if it’s potatoes, then it could easily be millions of them. 

For example, if your policy is set to expire on December 31st, and you hold a New Year's Eve yoga class, and then the next day, on January 1st, a claim is filed, with claims made, you most likely have no coverage for this event, even though it occurs while you had coverage. With an occurrence form, you could wait months after the policy has expired to file this claim, and it would still be covered. Because we want our yoga insurance to be easily accessible and a good value for the investment, we choose only to include occurrence form coverage with our policies.

Benefit Programs 

Yoga insurance needs to be more valuable than just great coverage — so many programs include member benefits in a policy. Since our mission is to help yoga teachers on their journey to becoming a better teacher and growing their businesses, we’ve made it a high priority to add as many valuable member benefits as possible, including discounts on yoga products, resources and everyday expenses, along with access to affordable health insurance options.  Always compare the program's benefits to get the best deal on yoga insurance. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Yoga instructors often have questions about how insurance affects their practice and which policies will suit their needs. These FAQs will answer your questions before investing in your insurance policy.

What Does Yoga Insurance Cost?

Price is an important consideration, and rates are usually pretty easy to find on most carriers’ websites. However, always dig a little deeper to see if the base rate listed is the final price you’ll pay. Some programs charge extra if you practice a certain modality or even if you practice in certain states. 

With beYogi, members enjoy coverage for well over 500 different health and wellness practices so that they can choose the best combinations for their classes. Our yoga insurance program also includes a provision for portability, which says that it doesn’t matter if you move across state lines, from one employer to the next, or how you choose to conduct yoga teachings — your insurance coverage will follow you within all 50 U.S. states.

What Should You Look for in a Policy?

When you're shopping for insurance, look for these key factors:

• Comprehensive coverage
• Policy limits to ensure you have adequate protection
• Flexibility to cover multiple locations
• The provider's reliability

How Much Coverage Do You Need?

The first is the big two — general and professional liability insurance. For these two common liabilities, beYogi members get up to $2 million for each occurrence, up to a $3 million individual annual aggregate. 

All beYogi insurance policies also include $25,000 in identity restoration services if an identity theft occurs. 

Are There Exclusions to Be Aware of?

It’s important to note whether a plan’s coverage limits are an individual aggregate or a shared aggregate as you compare yoga insurance plans out there. beYogi Yoga insurance uses an individual annual aggregate, meaning the limit you see on a particular coverage is yours for the term limit. Shared aggregates “pool” members together to add the claims toward the shared limit. This can be troublesome if other members use the limits of the claims before you, leaving your claim without adequate coverage. Any shortfalls would be up to the member to pay out of pocket. 

Getting Your Career Fully Covered with Yoga Insurance From beYogi

As a yoga instructor, you are in the business of promoting well-being, and you must also safeguard your livelihood. Insurance is a critical tool for balancing your passion for teaching with practical risk management. beYogi is here to protect you with affordable, all-inclusive yoga liability insurance. 

If any questions come up about how our coverage would apply to your yoga teaching, please contact our team. We have fully licensed agents available now to run through the entire policy and answer any questions you may have.