Professional Yoga 101: What is General Liability Insurance and Why Do I Need It?

It might not seem like it, but general liability insurance and yoga go together like peanut butter and jelly. Practicing yoga professionally with a solid general liability insurance plan at your back means you really can accomplish your day-to-day with confidence. Because general liability isn’t usually a focus in many yoga teacher training programs, we’ll dig deep into what it is and why this protection is vital for anyone looking to make a career as a yoga instructor. 

What is General Liability Insurance for Yoga Teachers?

General liability insurance covers accidents and injuries to a third party in and/or around where you provide yoga classes. Let’s break that down. First up, a third party is someone other than yourself or in this case your yoga insurance company. So an individual taking a class with you would be classified as a third party. Next, what constitutes an accident or injury? You may have heard of general liability as “slip and fall” coverage because this is unfortunately a really common type of accident that occurs on a property. 

Slip and fall accidents can take many forms. It could be a front door mat that someone trips over or a leaky water fountain that makes a puddle that someone slips on. These types of incidents may seem fairly tame but the National Safety Council reports that slips, trips, and falls cause hundreds of fatalities each year and hundreds of thousands of serious injuries. 

A Closer Look at How General Liability Insurance Protects You

You're a yoga instructor that has years of experience and teaches a truly stellar class with tons of happy students. Then, one day a student is injured when they slip on freshly waxed floors. In the tumble, they fracture their hip and break the expensive cell phone in their pocket. Liability means something the law says you have to pay. So general liability is a risk facing all professionals. 

On the other side is general liability insurance which covers the costs associated with a claim like the above example. Costs could include the injured party’s medical bills, lost wages, property damage, and others. If they decided to take you to court, you’d then even have to pay for legal protection. With general liability insurance, the cost of the claim and legal defense fees are all provided for under one really stout protection plan. 

What 360° of Protection Looks Like With Yoga Insurance 

Now, general liability is only one piece of the equation when it comes to insurance that actually protects you from the types of risks you’ll face every day. With beYogi, we provide an all-inclusive policy in one, easy package. This includes two other forms of liability protection and a suite of additional safeguards.

Professional Liability Insurance for Yoga Teachers

General liability is indeed invaluable as a yoga professional wanting to teach for the long haul. But there are other types of risks out there that also need to be protected against. One of the other big types of liability is called professional liability. Professional liability insurance, aka malpractice insurance or errors and omissions insurance, is going to cover you from injuries or damages to someone’s property that came as a result of the professional yoga instruction you provided.

As with general liability, professional liability takes many forms. You may have a student come in who has an undisclosed heart condition and they over-exert themselves during your advanced Ashtanga yoga class. It might be another student saying your pose went too deep and they tore a muscle. Accidents of this variety come in all shapes and sizes which is why professional yogis definitely want to see this included with their yoga insurance plan.

Product Liability Insurance in Yoga

Product liability protection covers you when someone has an adverse reaction to a product that’s used in the course of your teaching. They could have an allergic reaction to the organic cleaner you used in the studio that suddenly requires emergency medical treatment. When the dust settles, the student may come back and demand you pay for all their medical costs. Because these incidents can prove quite costly, we include up to $2 million in product coverage. 

Additional Protections for the Modern Yoga Pro

True protection includes general liability insurance, professional liability insurance, product liability insurance, and other safeguards that all help minimize risks for a career yogi. beYogi includes additional protections so that our members have a thick wall surrounding their livelihood. Rental damage coverage, identity protection, even stolen equipment coverage. beYogi tailored this policy to match up to the real risks facing modern yoga teachers.

Extra Benefits of Having a Yoga Insurance Plan

Yoga teacher insurance with great limits for general and professional liability, along with a whole suite of additional safeguards, provides the best level of protection possible. However, you really should be getting a lot more with an insurance policy in order to get a great value for your investment. That’s why our yoga liability insurance policies come with a benefits plan that’s valued at more than $1,000 all by itself. 

Included for free and available from day one, you’ll get a professional website that’s easy to customize for your brand of yoga, discounts from top names in yoga gear and business services, free courses, content libraries, and so much more. 

Why Peace of Mind Matters When Teaching Yoga

Teaching from a place of rest is key to truly guiding your students on a beneficial and progressive yoga journey. But having that peace especially in the health and wellness climate today can be hard to come by. In tailoring this program for yoga professionals, we wanted to make it as easy as possible to get high-quality insurance, at an affordable rate, with no hoops to jump through. From sign up through the coverage term, and even after the policy expires one thing resonates with beYogi policies—accessibility. 

Using occurrence form policies has some of the biggest impacts on ensuring our members are taken care of the right way and can actually enjoy the peace of mind of coverage. Occurrence form says that if an incident occurs while your policy is active, it doesn’t matter if you wait until after your policy expires to file your claim, it will still be considered. Watch out for the opposite which is claims-made policies. These ones say that you have to file your claim while the policy is active for it to be considered. We don’t like tricky hoops like this which could mean absolutely no coverage just depending on timing. 

• Example: a yoga teacher has a policy that expires December 31st at midnight. A few days before the policy expires, they are holding their last yoga class of the year. A student is injured in the class but because of the holidays, waits until a few weeks into January to tell the yoga teacher they’d like them to cover the medical bills they had. Because of the timing, with a claims made policy that’s expired the teacher couldn’t go back and file that claim even though it occurred while the policy was active. The occurrence form coverage we offer understands the real world gives you all sorts of twists and turns and would still consider your claim even after your policy has expired.

What to Expect if You Decide to Join beYogi

The fact that you are exploring your options for yoga general liability insurance is a great step towards securing your future against the unexpected. But if you’ve been comparing insurance plans, you’ve probably noticed quickly that the terms, pricing, coverage, and other details can be hard to find or can differ significantly depending on which plan you are looking at. 

beYogi is all about keeping yoga insurance smooth and stress-free. That’s why we put all of our coverage and pricing information right up front on our site. You don’t have to click through a long questionnaire and give up a bunch of personal information just to get a price or see what all is covered. Just click around and find everything you need all in one easy place. If you have any questions at all, you can contact us however is most convenient for you. We have really friendly agents that can walk you through the entire policy. 

From day one when you sign up with beYogi, you’ll get immediate access to all of your plan documents, including certificates of insurance, instantaneous full and out coverage, and instant acceptance into the beYogi tribe. That means teaching tips, pose information, tons of resources, benefits, and so much more all from the get-go.

The Sign Up Process for Yoga Insurance 

Back to that stress-free mentality, signing up for beYogi is no different. There’s a really quick check out process that takes most yogis under 5 minutes to complete. After that, you’re in, you’re covered, and you can get back to teaching your yoga classes with the absolute confidence that comes from tailored yoga general liability insurance.