As a personal trainer, your number one goal is to help your clients reach their maximum physical potential. It is to push them in a way that increases their exercise-related results, while also teaching them how to perform the movements safely so as to avoid injury.
Though your typical “tools of the trade” generally revolve around free weights, barbells, and a wide variety of exercise equipment designed to provide both muscle and endurance-building workouts, there is one more tool you should have as a personal trainer.
That tool is a fitness insurance policy and there are three extremely solid reasons why you really don’t want to go without this type of coverage.
#1: To Better Protect Yourself from Injury-Related Lawsuits
In February of 2016, the Stamford Advocate shared a story of a Greenwich, Connecticut doctor who sued his personal trainer after experiencing a post-workout stroke. The jury agreed that the personal trainer was at least partially at fault for designing such a strenuous workout. The payout? $14.5 million.
Certainly, you can do your best to provide a safe, yet effective exercise plan for all of your clients. However, you can’t always foresee how their bodies are going to respond. And if it responds negatively, they have a right to file a lawsuit against you for damages.
The two types of damages they can go after, according to the online legal resource Justia, are compensatory damages and punitive damages. Compensatory damages may be monetary in nature (such as to help pay for the individual’s medical expenses, lost wages, or costs associated with any lifestyle changes required as a result of the injury) or non-monetary, which is often the case when someone sues for “pain and suffering.”
Punitive damages are different from compensatory in that they are used not so much to make the injured party whole financially, but more so to punish the person who is allegedly responsible for the injury. Additionally, if an award is granted, the court can order that it either be paid in one lump sum or via a structured settlement, requiring that you make payments regularly for a specified period of time.
Whether you are at fault or not, fighting an oftentimes lengthy court battle can be expensive when you consider attorney fees and time off work to appear in court. If you’re ordered to pay an astronomical amount of damages, it can get much worse on you and your family both as you struggle to figure out how you’re going to pay a larger-than-life award.
Fitness insurance helps cover these types of expenses. This enables you to go about your personal training career without the fear that your next client may be your last because one lawsuit (or potential lawsuit) can potentially put you out of business.
#2: To Help Replace Stolen Equipment
It may seem weird that people would steal gym equipment—especially when the norm seems to be for people to buy it, never use it, then give it away—but the reality is that it happens.
Case in point: in July of 2017, the Telegram shared the story of a man who allegedly took a rowing machine right out the front door of a CrossFit facility in Southboro, Massachusetts. And in August of that same year, the Newtown Patch reported that police in Newtown, Pennsylvania were looking for someone who stole a rowing machine, dumbbell rack, and weights from the gym of an age-restricted community.
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It isn’t always big fitness items that are stolen either. One of your patrons could walk off with smaller, easier to conceal exercise equipment you have in your workout area, like hand weights, weight plates, carabiners, resistance bands, and pins.
If this were to ever happen to you (or maybe it already has?), your personal trainer insurance can help offset the costs associated with replacing these pieces of fitness-related equipment so you can continue to provide your complete services to all of your other personal training clients.
#3: To Improve Your Marketability
Maybe you don’t have your own gym and, therefore, don’t have your own equipment, making the idea of equipment theft not a big-ticket item for you. Perhaps you simply work out of a variety of local facilities, offering your services as a personal trainer to their clientele.
In that case, having your own fitness insurance policy can make you more appealing to local gym owners because they know that you’re covered if one of your (and their) clients is injured while working out with you. In fact, some gyms may require that you carry your own insurance if you plan to provide services within their business.
Even if they don’t, which would you rather bring on as a gym owner? Someone who takes themselves seriously enough as a personal trainer to ensure that they are covered should something go wrong or someone who doesn’t seem to be concerned with liability, making it more your problem than theirs?
Selecting the Right Fitness Insurance for You
When purchasing fitness insurance as a personal trainer, it’s important to choose a policy that meets all of your coverage needs. This involves selecting one that offers both professional and general liability, as well as product liability coverage.
The professional and general liability provides coverages related to any injury that may occur, whether as a result of doing an exercise wrong or something completely unrelated to working out, such as a slip and fall. Product liability, on the other hand, protects you in the event that a product you sell causes one of your clients to be injured or harmed.
For instance, Insure Fitness Group offers both types, making them a full-protection provider. They also provide their personal training clients with additional benefits as well, such as identity protection, stolen equipment coverage, and discounts on fitness-related products.
And if you like to do business with companies that are concerned about the environment, Insure Fitness Group plants a tree in honor of everyone who purchases a policy. So, not only are you protecting yourself by buying a policy through them, but you’re protecting the environment too.
Fitness insurance is one of those things that no one likes to pay for, but use it just once and you’ll be more than happy that you have it. Even if you never have to use it, at least you’ll always have the peace of mind that its there.
