No matter where you teach music — at home, online, out of a rented studio, or at a school — protecting your career is crucial. Even if you’ve been teaching for a while without coverage, there’s no time like the present to get the financial protection only a good insurance policy can provide you.
Accidents happen, and they can be expensive. Having music teacher insurance can mean the difference between paying thousands of dollars out of your own pocket vs. having your insurance company take care of the cost.
But do all at-home, online, and school-based music teachers all need the same type of insurance? And how do you know which types of coverage you need?
A Primer on Liability Insurance for Music Teachers
General Liability
General liability insurance is often called “slip-and-fall coverage”. It’s Insurance Canopy’s base insurance coverage for music teachers, whether you teach at home, in a studio, or at a school — even if you’re a school employee. It’s designed to respond to third-party bodily injury claims as well as third-party property damage incidents.
Damage to premises rented to you — otherwise known as fire legal liability — is included in our general liability policy. This coverage responds primarily to fire damage on your rented premises for the duration of your policy, but can also cover other damage done to a property you’ve rented for seven (7) days or less.
Professional Liability
Ever heard the terms “errors and omissions” or “E&O insurance”? Well, that’s just another name for professional liability insurance, which can shield you from claims related to your professional services or the advice you give to students. It’s included in our general liability policy for music teachers.
If you help a student prepare for an audition to get into the program of their dreams and they fail and sue you for poor instruction, professional liability can cover your associated legal fees.
Products-Completed Operations
Products-completed operations coverage is essentially two coverages combined into one. It is designed to cover both the products you sell as well as the services you provide. For example, if you sell one of your old instruments to a student and then it malfunctions and injures them, this coverage could respond to that student’s claim.
Or, if you restrung your student’s guitar and then the strings snapped and hurt them, this coverage could also provide a shield against any lawsuits you might face.
Personal and Advertising Injury
Getting sued for slander or libel can lead to thousands of dollars in legal fees, which personal and advertising injury insurance can cover. It also covers instances of false advertising, wrongful eviction, copyright infringement, and invasion of privacy. This coverage is included in our base policy for at-home, online, and school-based music teachers.
All of the above coverages are included in your base policy from Insurance Canopy starting from $21.08 a month (or $229/year with annual prepayment). If you’d like to get a free online quote, click here to access our online app.
The coverages below are optional and designed to help you round out protection for your business equipment and more.
Equipment and Instruments (Inland Marine)
The instruments and other equipment you use to teach music lessons are anything but cheap, which is why equipment and instruments coverage is so important. If your instruments or other business gear are stolen or damaged, it can cover the cost of repairing or replacing them. This is an optional add-on coverage.
Cyber Liability
Cyber liability insurance, or data theft protection, is another optional coverage you can add to your base plan. It’s designed to cover you in the event you become the victim of a cybercrime, such as a data breach or phishing scam.
If you store client records, information, or payment info online, any of that could be at risk to cybercrimes. Cyber liability can help cover related costs. With over 3,200 data breaches in the U.S. alone in 2023, this coverage has never been more important.
Additional Insureds
Additional insureds aren’t technically a type of insurance — instead, they are people or organizations you add to your policy by request, such as landlords or schools that hire you as a contractor. Once you add them to your policy, they get protection from accidents that occur as a result of something you did.
For example, let’s say you teach from a rented studio space and the property manager requires you to add the studio as an additional insured. One day a student trips over a stack of music books left on the floor, falls, and breaks their wrist.
The student (or their parent) could sue you and the studio to recover medical expenses and damages. Because the accident happened out of your business operations, your policy can also cover the studio. It’s common for landlords, venues, and other qualified third parties to require this as a condition of you working at their location.
Where You Teach Impacts Your Insurance Needs: Here’s How
The types of coverage you need to teach music can differ slightly depending on where you teach — at home, in a studio, online, out of a school setting, and so on. Each environment comes with its own associated risks. Let’s take a look at what those risks are for each type of music teacher and what coverage you need to protect yourself from their financial impacts.
Keep in mind that these are not exhaustive lists of the risks you could face but rather examples of common incidents that could result in a claim.
Insurance for Home-Based Music Teachers
In-home music teachers either conduct lessons from their own residences or travel to students’ homes. With either, there are risks insurance can safeguard you from.
For example, if you give lessons from your own home, you might assume your homeowner’s policy would cover the materials and instruments you use for your business if they were damaged in a fire. However, many homeowners policies do not cover claims that result from home-based business activities.
But, with equipment and instruments insurance, you can receive coverage for your damaged business gear and avoid paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to replace essential teaching materials.
| Scenario | Recommended Coverage | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
A student trips on an instrument case you left on the floor and injures themselves |
✔️ General Liability Insurance
|
||||
|
A student sues you and claims you provided poor instruction, as a result, they didn’t get into a program they were working towards
|
✔️ Professional Liability Insurance
|
||||
|
A fire takes place in your home and destroys the instruments you use for teaching |
✔️ Equipment and Instruments Insurance |
||||
|
A data breach compromises your students’ sensitive personal information |
✔️ Cyber Liability Insurance |
||||
Insurance for Private Music Teachers Giving Lessons in a Studio
One of the biggest risks that comes with teaching out of a space you lease is the chance you might damage that property. No matter how careful you are, accidents happen — especially when your students may not be as mindful.
General liability insurance is crucial for studio-based music teachers. If you or your students damage the studio, repairs or replacements could be covered by your policy. Or, if you left a candle burning in your studio while you headed out to lunch and it caused a fire, damage to premises rented could cover your financial responsibility.
It’s also likely for landlords to ask that you add them to your policy as an additional insured before they let you lease the space. Even though the landlord likely has an insurance policy of their own, they don’t want their insurance to pay out for damages or injuries you cause while operating on their premises.
| Scenario | Recommended Coverage | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
A student stumbles over an extension cord in your studio, falls, and needs medical attention |
✔️ General Liability Insurance
|
||||
|
You accidentally leave a candle burning in your studio, causing fire damage on the walls
|
✔️ Damage to Premises Rented to You
|
||||
|
A student claims you didn’t adequately prepare them for a music exam and sues you for damages |
✔️ Professional Liability Insurance |
||||
|
One of your students accidentally knocks a speaker off the wall of your studio, breaking it |
✔️ Equipment and Instruments Insurance |
||||
|
Your students sue you over a data breach that compromised their payment info and caused financial losses |
✔️ Cyber Liability Insurance |
||||
|
The studio landlord requests additional insured status on your insurance policy |
✔️ Additional Insured |
||||
Insurance for School Music Teachers (Employees or Contractors)
Whether you teach at a private or public school, your risks will be largely the same. In addition to many of the risks in-home and studio music teachers face, school music teachers are often responsible for teaching larger groups of students at a time. The more students there are to manage, the more likely accidents become.
Imagine you have a rowdy class that just came in after recess. While you’re trying to get everyone in their seats, two students knock your guitar off its stand while roughhousing, and it breaks. What would normally cost you thousands of dollars to replace could be covered with equipment and instrument insurance.
Many school-employed music teachers also assume that the school’s insurance policy will cover them if something goes wrong. However, if something goes wrong and the school’s insurance company decides you are at fault (and not the school), having your own music teacher insurance policy can protect you from footing the bill out of pocket.
| Scenario | Recommended Coverage | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
A student injures themselves trying to move a heavy instrument in your classroom |
✔️ General Liability Insurance
|
||||
|
A student's parents sue you after their child fails the AP Music Theory exam, accusing you of providing incorrect instruction
|
✔️ Professional Liability Insurance |
||||
|
Two students accidentally break one of your instruments while messing around in your classroom |
✔️ Equipment and Instruments Insurance |
||||
|
You get sued for defamation by a school you worked for after posting online about your negative experience working for them |
✔️ Personal and Advertising Injury |
||||
|
Your students sue you over a data breach that compromised their payment info and caused financial losses |
✔️ Cyber Liability Insurance |
||||
|
Before a school hires you as a 1099 employee, they request additional insured status on your policy |
✔️ Additional Insured |
||||
Note: A school’s liability insurance is there to protect the school, first and foremost. Many school districts, teachers’ unions, and professional educational associations highly recommend that teachers (whether employed or contracted) protect their careers and finances by carrying teacher insurance.
Insurance for Online Music Teachers
Even though online music teachers don’t work with students in person, there are still risks associated with this virtual teaching that make insurance important.
Teaching music online means you rely heavily on technology and need a great internet connection to conduct lessons. But if your WiFi is spotty and disrupts your lessons, a student could sue you, claiming their tuition was wasted because their time with you was cut short.
Professional liability insurance (which is included alongside general liability in our base policy) could help you in this case. Insurance can also come in handy if your laptop is stolen and you’re unable to teach until you get it replaced or if a cyberattack locks you out of your computer.
As flexible as teaching music online can be, it’s also important to remember that technology is fragile and vulnerable to things like theft and cybercrimes. The good news is that music teacher insurance can financially protect you from incidents like these.
| Scenario | Recommended Coverage | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
A student sues you because your poor WiFi connection caused significant disruptions to their lesson time |
✔️ Professional Liability Insurance
|
||||
|
Students rent music from you, but after blowing a competition, a student realizes that several pages of the piece were missing and sues you, saying the music you provided them was the problem |
✔️ Products-Completed Operations |
||||
|
The laptop you use to teach online lessons is stolen and you need to replace it |
✔️ Equipment and Instruments Insurance |
||||
|
A cyberattack compromises your computer and you are locked out of the device, unable to access your teaching materials |
✔️ Cyber Liability Insurance |
||||
How to Customize Your Insurance for Any Setting
Insurance Canopy makes it easy for you to customize your professional liability coverage no matter where you teach – online, from home, in your private studio, or as a school employee. Our base music teacher insurance policy includes the following types of coverage starting from $21.08/month or $229/year:
- General Liability
- Professional Liability
- Damage to Premises Rented
- Products-Completed Operations
- Personal and Advertising Injury
- Free and Unlimited Additional Insureds
From there, you can personalize your policy with these add-on coverages:
- Cyber Liability ($8.25 per month)
- Equipment and Instruments ($2.17 per month)
You can also customize your coverage by adding excess liability limits, which you may choose to do if our base policy’s limits don’t meet an employer’s contractual requirements. We offer general and professional liability limits of up to $1,000,000 per claim and up to $2,000,000 for the year.
Why Insurance Canopy is the Right Insurance for Any Setting
Regardless of where you teach, you can get public or private music teacher insurance starting at just $21.08 per month or $229 per year from Insurance Canopy. That’s less than the cost of some oboe reeds!
In addition to offering affordable coverage, we also make it easy for you to get your perfect policy. Unlike some other companies, we don’t require you to have an association membership to get insured. Plus, you get an instant Certificate of Insurance (COI) upon purchase.
Don’t let an accident cause you to miss a beat — get your free quote today in 10 minutes or less!
Common Questions Music Teachers Have About Insurance
How Much Does Private Music Teacher Insurance Cost?
Whether you teach online, at home, or at a school, premiums for music teacher insurance start at $21.08 per month or $229 per year. Learn more about the cost of music teacher insurance from Insurance Canopy and what factors can affect what you pay.
Does Homeowners Insurance Cover Me Giving Music Lessons at Home?
Do I Need Different Insurance to Teach at a School vs a Private Studio?
Will Music Teacher Liability Insurance Protect Me for Online Lessons?
Does My Insurance Cover Me for Seasonal Programs or Summer Camp Work?
JoAnne Hammer | Program Manager
JoAnne Hammer is the Program Manager for Insurance Canopy. She has held the prestigious Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) designation since July 2004.
JoAnne understands that starting and operating a business takes a tremendous amount of time, dedication, and financial resources. She believes that insurance is the single best way to protect your investment, business, and personal assets.
JoAnne Hammer is the Program Manager for Insurance Canopy. She has held the prestigious Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) designation since July 2004.
JoAnne understands that starting and operating a business takes a tremendous amount of time, dedication, and financial resources. She believes that insurance is the single best way to protect your investment, business, and personal assets.
