In order to teach, you’ve put hundreds of hours of study into your practice. You can challenge yourself while conducting flows with steady, proper form. Your students, on the other hand, probably don’t. Even if they do, sometimes the universe conspires against us and accidents happen — which is why you need insurance to teach yoga.
Understand Yoga Teacher Insurance Requirements
While not government-mandated, you need yoga liability insurance to protect your students, your practice, and yourself from costly out-of-pocket expenses due to injuries, accidents, and other unforeseen circumstances.
Most locations (studios, gyms, parks, rooftops) will require you to have your own liability insurance before allowing you to teach your first pranayama in their space.
- General Liability Insurance: Protection for claims related to bodily injuries and property damage experienced by students and others. Personal injury or damage to your personal property is not included in this coverage.
- Professional Liability Insurance: Coverage for claims related to damages or injuries to others stemming from advice or instruction you gave while teaching. This is also known as malpractice insurance or errors and omissions coverage.
- Medical Expense Coverage: Helps cover payments for medical bills quickly if someone gets hurt during your instruction, no matter who is at fault.
- Damage to Premises Rented to You: Coverage for rented spaces if they get damaged by fire. If you rent a space for seven days or less, coverage applies to damage regardless of cause and includes contents as well as the space itself.
What Protections Does Yoga Teacher Insurance Include?
Your students may know what movement to perform when you say chaturanga, but they might not know what the Sanskrit word actually means. Similarly, most people get the gist of general insurance jargon but still struggle with the actual meaning of the terms and coverages.
What is the significance of these types of coverage in clear, tangible examples? What kinds of situations does yoga liability insurance protect you from? The most common scenarios involve:
- Slips, trips, and falls
- Client injuries
- Professional errors or omissions
- Damage to client, studio, or other rented property
Slips, Trips, and Falls
Falls are one of the most common recurring accidents in the United States, with over eight million people visiting the emergency room in 2022. Trips and falls also make up 50% of Insurance Canopy’s fitness and yoga claims.
Trip and fall claims include accidents like these and more.
- Clients tripping over equipment while setting up before or cleaning up after class
- Participants losing their balance during a pose
- Students bumping into others, causing another student to fall
In one real-life claim, a client fell and ended up with $43,175 in lost wages and medical bills. Luckily, the instructor’s general liability insurance paid for this claim.
Other Injuries
Students may experience other injuries during class for various reasons and hold you responsible for them. This includes things like:
- A sprained wrist from repeated chaturangas
- A dislocated knee from an improper pose transition
- A pulled hamstring from performing downward dog
- A pinched nerve from attempting an advanced backbend pose
Depending on the specific circumstances, either general or professional liability insurance is designed to help cover the costs of claims related to incidents like these.
Professional Errors
Clients may also blame you for other real or perceived injuries they experienced due to your advice. Examples of claims like this include:
- Accusations that the client did not achieve the results they expected or were promised
- A student tearing a muscle performing a pose incorrectly while practicing at home based on your previous instruction
- A participant suffering a medical event during class due to your failure to check for pre-existing conditions
In another real-life claim, an instructor had to defend themselves in a lawsuit for an incident they were not at fault for. Their professional liability insurance was able to pay $61,045 for that wrongful suit.
Property Damages
Damage to physical property makes up 7.5% of Insurance Canopy’s fitness claims, while damages to rented premises account for 2.5%. These scenarios involve things like:
- Broken mirrors
- Dented floors
- Ripped bolsters
- Damage to clients’ property
- Fire damage to a rented studio
Yoga Instructor Insurance Costs vs Yoga Claims Costs
Claims can range from a broken mirror worth several hundred dollars, all the way to medical bills and lawsuits costing tens of thousands of dollars. Even one claim could be enough to bankrupt your practice or decimate your personal finances.
Yoga teacher liability insurance is designed to be a safety net to help keep you out of those devastating circumstances. With Insurance Canopy, 74% of yoga instructors only pay $15 per month for that safety net, which includes general liability, professional liability, damage to rented premises coverage, and more.
So for as little as $15 per month or $159 per year, you get comprehensive coverage for less than a pair of round Manduka bolsters.
Customize Your Yoga Insurance Policy Today
Yoga teacher insurance from Insurance Canopy covers dozens of yoga styles and includes both general and professional liability coverage in one policy. Plus, your policy also includes:
- Products-Completed Operations Coverage: Protection for damage due to an incident that occurred with a product during or after your class. For example, you sell a student a loop band that snaps and hits them in the eye the next time they use it.
- Personal and Advertising Injury: Protection for incidents that produce harm other than bodily harm. For example, another yogi or yoga studio claims you stole their slogan and advertisement imagery.
- Damage to Premises Rented to You: You accidentally knock over a storage shelf while returning blankets used in class and it breaks.
- Medical Expense: A student loses their balance in tree pose and falls into the person next to them. That person then ends up with a broken wrist.
In addition, Canopy offers several optional add-on coverages to further customize your policy based on your individual needs.
- Gear and Equipment Coverage: Also known as “inland marine,” this coverage applies to your transportable business gear like bolsters, straps, mats, and other equipment
- Cyber Liability Coverage: Coverage in the event you or your clients experience a cyber attack or breach in cyber security
- Diet & Nutrition Coverage: Coverage for additional services you offer clients, such as nutrition education, dietary guidelines, or the sale/recommendation of health supplements
- Additional Insureds: Coverage for a third party, such as a business, property owner, event organizer, or employer who could be named in a claim alongside you
Protect yourself from the costs of common yoga claims with comprehensive, customizable yoga instructor liability insurance.
Frequently Asked Questions About Why Yoga Teachers Need Insurance
Do You Need Insurance to Teach Yoga Online?
Yes. If you teach virtual clients or online classes, either live or pre-recorded, you still need liability insurance. Clients can still blame you, file a claim against you, or sue you for harm they experienced during or due to one of your online sessions.
Do I Need Insurance if I Only Teach Part-Time or Occasionally?
Yes. Only teaching part-time does not absolve you of liability should anything happen. If you teach at a studio or in a rented space, the property owners will likely require you to have liability insurance no matter how many hours you teach.
You are never too small or too part-time not to need instructor insurance.
What Happens if I Teach Yoga Without Insurance?
If you teach yoga without insurance and something happens, a student gets hurt or you accidentally break a window, you may still be held responsible for those damages.
Without insurance, the costs of repairing property damage, medical bills, and/or lawsuits will come out of your business or personal finances – which could end your teaching career or result in bankruptcy.
