While we all want to base our yoga insurance purchasing decision on factors such as best quality, most favorable reviews, or highest coverage limits, when we get down to it, most often the factor that carries the most weight for today’s hard working professionals is price. We know yoga insurance costs can make or break the decision to go with one yoga insurance company over another so in this post, we’ll cover all of the relevant information pertaining to yoga insurance costs and pricing, including the best ways to accurately compare yoga insurance plans.
Why do yoga teachers even need insurance?
It may sound simple, but have you ever wondered why yoga teachers need insurance in the first place? Yoga studios will often require their instructors to carry their own liability insurance to offer classes, but not always. Yoga teachers that have passed their yoga teacher training and have moved on to teaching live classes full of eager students have put in some serious hours to hone their own skills and understanding of the many different practices in yoga. Conversations and health questionnaires before taking on a new student help to pinpoint where the student is at physically and any ongoing health issues to be aware of as the student participates in sessions. But just like that, one small slip and someone in the class is injured.
Whether right or wrong, most often the yoga instructor is held responsible for any damages or injuries that may occur to a student while under their instruction. Yes, the odds of an event like this happening are not high, but they do happen, and our team helps members with claim events just like this each and every day. Without yoga teacher liability insurance, a yoga instructor would be left covering the costs of the claim themselves.
Beyond liability coverage, carrying yoga insurance can have a host of other benefits including protection for lost or stolen equipment, coverage that follows you from one studio to the next, yoga teacher training resources, business tips, and discounts and perks.
Spotting a Good Price-to-Coverage (P2C) Ratio
It’s hard to get yoga insurance programs on an apples-to-apples basis with all of the different coverage jargon out there. One company promising you the best coverage limits out there for liabilities and another saying core modalities are best covered by their services. Wading through the confusion with our yoga insurance cost comparison, we sought a way to really simplify the rates and coverages being offered. Hence, our handy price-to-coverage (P2C) ratio was born.
Taking the highest rate listed for insurance and dividing that by the highest coverage limit listed (i.e. the annual individual aggregate), we developed a simple ratio to use in comparing how much coverage you get for what it costs. Said in another way, for every dollar spent to purchase the coverage, you get X dollars worth of coverage. For example, with beYogi - for every $1 spent to buy the coverage, you will get $16,759 in coverage based on a full time rate of $179 per year and a $3,000,000 individual annual aggregate (IAA).
Below is a list of lowest to highest P2C ratios for the yoga insurance companies used in our comparison:
- Next Insurance: $1 in premiums = $10,416 in coverage ($192/yr and $2mm IAA)
- Alternative Balance: $1 in premiums = $12,048 in coverage ($249/yr and $3mm IAA)
- beYogi: $1 in premiums = $16,759 in coverage ($179/yr and $3mm IAA)
- Yoga Journal: $1 in premiums = $17,777 in coverage ($225/yr* and $4mm IAA)
- Alliant Insurance: $1 in premiums = $21,052 in coverage ($190/yr* and $4mm IAA)
- Philadelphia Insurance: $1 in premiums = $21,621 in coverage ($185/yr* and $4mm IAA)
*Not including additional fees
Using this simplified approach to a cost and coverage comparison gives you a rough idea of how much each dollar you invest in a yoga insurance plan will get you in coverage. Do note, however, these figures can be somewhat misleading as the rates are the base rates in some cases. As we’ll discuss later, many plans have associated fees and other charges which can drastically change the ratios presented above.
Factoring Claim Convenience into the Yoga Insurance Cost
As we started performing this yoga insurance comparison, one glaring coverage option stood out that can make a huge impact on whether a claim event actually gets covered or not. Having insurance but not having coverage is never a good thing and not something you’d figure would happen with a quality yoga insurance plan, but unfortunately with any policy that is based on a claims made provision, this can become a reality.
- With claims made coverage, all claims have to be filed while the policy is still active in order for them to be considered. If your policy should expire and then suddenly you need to file a claim for an event that occurred sometime prior to that expiration, you’re almost certainly out of luck unless you purchased a special coverage extension, called a tail.
- The opposite of claims made policies are occurrence form coverage. With occurrence form, you can file a claim for an event that happened during your active policy period even after that policy has long since expired. Beyogi is the only company in our comparison to advertise its use of occurrence form coverage, by far the industry choice for yoga professionals today.
You may notice that claims made policies are being advertised at a lower rate and wonder what gives. This is simply because it is cheaper from an underwriting perspective for the policy to be issued. That means that because the insurance company knows you might not have coverage and they may not have to pay out, they don’t have to charge as much. Yoga pro tip - know before you buy and examine just which type of coverage the yoga insurance plan you’re looking at uses.
Yoga Insurance Membership Fees and Surcharges
As we started to discuss earlier with our P2C ratios, a careful consideration professionals seeking yoga insurance need to keep in mind is the myriad of fees and surcharges that can be lurking in the subtotal at checkout. Many companies will offer a low rate initially only to rack up a host of other charges for things like adding additional covered services beyond a small, select group of modalities, moving your coverage to another location or state, or simply by charging a annual membership fee along with the cost of the premium. Be very mindful of all the different fees that will be used to calculate your premium and final costs as these can add up quickly and make what you thought was a bargain into a far less desirable expense. In our comparison, only three companies do not charge an annual membership fee - beYogi, Next Insurance, and Alternative Balance.
Cost-Benefit Analysis with Yoga Insurance
So far we’ve looked at price relative to the coverage you get and how the policy is set up. Since insurance coverage is something you hopefully won’t have to use with any regularity, yoga teacher insurance costs should also be considered in light of the additional benefits the program offers. In a rundown of the different perks offered by yoga insurance companies, we found some similarities but one company definitely stood out as having the most membership benefits offered (hint: rhymes with sea pogey).
Here’s our tally of all the benefits, discounts, perks, and freebies we could find that are offered by the yoga insurance companies in our comparison:
- Rental Damage Coverage: beYogi, Yoga Alliance, Yoga Journal, Alternative Balance, and Philadelphia Insurance
- Stolen Equipment Coverage: beYogi
- Identity Protection Plan: beYogi
- Free Professional Website: beYogi
- Premium includes Coverage for 350+ Modalities: beYogi
- Coverage Portability in all 50 U.S. States: beYogi, Yoga Alliance, Yoga Journal, Alternative Balance, and Philadelphia Insurance
One of the biggest benefits on the above list but one that can be overlooked is coverage for hundreds of different health and wellness modalities with beYogi. As a yoga instructor, you may also offer services as a Pilates instructor, give Reiki massages, and run a spinning class on the weekends. Rather than having to buy a separate policy for each of your activities, with yoga teacher insurance all of these modalities would be covered under one, comprehensive policy.
Running a Yoga Teacher Liability Insurance Program Comparison
Being able to make sense of all of the different insurance options out there for yoga teachers can seem daunting. By boiling down some of the basic attributes of the different policies, you can better see a clear picture of what you’re actually getting versus what you’re actually paying. Understanding just how difficult it can be to visualize all of this, we’ve published our yoga teacher liability insurance comparison in our complete guide to yoga insurance. This way, you can see each of the leading yoga insurance companies side by side and decide for yourself which blend of coverage options is best for your individual yoga journey.
Talking Over Your Yoga Insurance Situation with a Licensed Agent
Still have questions about how beYogi’s yoga insurance would work in your unique situation? As leaders in online yoga insurance, you have full and immediate access to beYogi’s fully licensed agents who will take the time to walk you through the entire policy and answer any questions you may have. Contact our team however is most convenient to you by calling (800) 516-8822, email info@beyogi.com, or fill out our online contact form.
