Cheap Yoga Teacher Insurance Risky Compared to Comprehensive Affordable Options

Oct 22, 2021

Cheap yoga teacher insurance is risky. Yoga teachers and instructors must protect their business with affordable comprehensive liability insurance. There are numerous cheap options that can be very tempting, but leave yoga teachers exposed to costly lawsuits.

Top rated Yoga teacher and instructor insurance provider, beYogi, reports that now, more than ever, it is critical for you to choose the correct teacher liability insurance. Cheap options do not provide sufficient coverage for all the potential liabilities yoga professionals could encounter.

This report concludes that beYogi offers the most comprehensive and affordable insurance coverage in the industry.  For more information about beYogi you should visit: https://beyogi.com/

With or without insurance, even the most careful yoga teachers have found themselves facing a liability claim at some point in their careers.  But it doesn’t start and end with personal and general liability. There are many other areas of potential losses yoga teachers and instructors could incur.

Cheap yoga insurance might sound more like a dream than reality. If you come across cheap or remarkably inexpensive yoga insurance, it’s highly likely not going to provide the required benefits and leave you exposed to costly lawsuits.

Those of you who have chosen Yoga teaching as a full-time career, or even just to generate some extra income on a part-time basis, you will need to make some critical decisions when establishing their business: How to cost effectively protect yourself financially against very real risks inherent in the yoga teaching profession.

With so many other tasks to accomplish while setting up a professional practice, finding exactly the right level of insurance could be viewed as complicated, time consuming and a bit of a nuisance.  Some yoga teachers may feel that just having anything in place — even cheap and incomplete insurance checks that box and they can move on to more fun projects.

Some yoga teachers also make the mistake of assuming their studio or training facility will provide liability coverage, but this is simply not true in most cases.

Like most other purchase decisions available to anyone in any phase of their lives – “cheap” can be very tempting but most of the time it ends up being a case of “getting what was paid for”. Most experienced yoga professionals say that a far better approach to making the correct decision is to find cost affordable, comprehensive insurance.

Cheap yoga insurance plans advertise too-low-to-believe premiums, “introductory offers”, or “basic plans”. These types of yoga insurance might seem attractive based on price alone.  The danger here is in ending up with a policy that has absolutely no weight to it, leaving the yoga teacher with significant risk of a financial disaster. 

This often happens when the teacher has not taken the time to thoroughly understand what is and what is not included in the policy and what the full scope of the risks are. They end up with a false sense of security, complacent with the knowledge that they at least have some insurance in place. 

All categories of yoga teachers or instructors, whether they are full or part time, offering online classes or in person, must take the time to find exactly the right insurance is for them.

A modern, comprehensive yoga insurance policy should provide all the following categories of coverage: 

1.  General Liability Coverage:  Often called “slip and fall” insurance because these types of incidents are unfortunately common for any business where customers visit a physical location. General liability incidents happen all the time. Some water on the floor, a loose rug, an uneven staircase — there are many ways that a slip and fall injury could occur. 

It’s called “general liability” because it applies to many types of injuries or property damage that occurs in or around a place of business, where the injured party asserts that negligence caused their injury. Negligence is a legal term that means a reasonable person should have foreseen the event but did not take the appropriate steps to prevent it from happening. It’s unfortunate that in our litigious society there may have been no way for a yoga teacher to practically have foreseen the event and yet they still end up facing a lawsuit. 

Even frivolous lawsuits are expensive to defend. Coverage of at least $2 Million per occurrence and $3 Million annually in aggregate expenses, covering both the costs of the claim and any legal defense fees, is highly recommended. This coverage can save a professional career that could otherwise have been in jeopardy in an instant.

2.  Professional Liability Coverage: Professional liability is related to the actual yoga instruction provided. Yoga professional liability insurance covers injuries to students and property that occur during a class.

Yoga instructors are leading, correcting, and guiding students through what can be challenging routines to bring about a greater state of physical and mental wellness. There are many, many different accidents and unforeseen events that make what’s also called “malpractice” or “errors and omissions” insurance not only practical, but essential. 

As an example, in 2013 a highly publicized event called attention to the wife of famous actor Alec Baldwin, Hilaria Thomas, who is a yoga instructor. Hilaria faced a professional liability lawsuit from one of her students who fell during her yoga class and broke a window, causing deep lacerations to the student’s leg. The suit alleged that Hilaria hadn’t demonstrated the proper “duty of care” required by yoga teachers for their students. 

The teacher may look away for an instant from one student who injures themselves in a pose and then claims they were not given proper attention. 

A student may claim they were instructed to accomplish a progression that aggravated a past injury they had disclosed in a pre-session questionnaire. Or a student may simply say that they were pushed too hard and suffered an injury as a result.

However these claims arise, professional liability is a real risk facing any yoga teacher who has students that are trusting them to provide a safe session. These claims are often entirely frivolous, and the courts may decide the case doesn’t have merit, but legal defense with associated fees will still have been incurred.

As with general liability, a minimum coverage of $2 Million per occurrence and $3 Million annual aggregate for claims related to professional liability is highly recommended.

3.  Product Liability Coverage: Yoga instructors use all kinds of mats, blocks, bands, and even cleaning products to provide great sessions for students. When a student is injured as a result of the instructor’s decision to use a specific product, they may seek compensation for costs such as medical bills and lost wages.

Most everyone has heard of professional and general insurance coverages, but product liability is something many are not as familiar with.   

If your business sells/uses a product and someone is injured by the use of the product, your company may be named in the lawsuit. Product Liability will pay for your legal defense and, if your company is found to be negligent, it will pay the injured third party.

As the health climate has required even more vigilance on behalf of yoga teachers and other wellness professionals, cleaning and sanitizing has become the norm. But what happens when a student has a bad reaction to the type of cleaner you use? Unfortunately, that student can come back and hold you responsible for their medical bills, lost wages, and other costs under the premise of product liability. 

Product liability could also arise with the use of a defective block or slippery mat, causing someone to fall over and injure themselves.

It is recommended that the yoga teacher insurance plan provides at least $2 million coverage for accidents related to product liability.

4.  Rental Damages Coverage: Most yoga instructors choose to rent space from a studio or gym to provide sessions for students. With a rented property, the landlord has the right to seek compensation to help cover the costs of repairs for any damages that occur.

The landlord or studio probably included specific language in the rental agreement which states that the instructor is responsible for covering the costs of repairs should damages occur while they are occupying space. 

In some cases, the instructor may even be liable for damage that may occur while they are not on the premises. A candle left too close to a wall that causes damage, a water cooler that tips over and damages a hardwood floor.

Accidents come in all shapes and sizes which is why it is recommended that yoga insurance policy includes up to a minimum of $100,000 to help cover the costs of repairs to a rented yoga space.

5.  Stolen/Damaged Equipment Coverage: Having equipment stolen in a robbery or in an isolated case of theft can be both traumatic and costly.  The loss of some or all the equipment required to conduct a yoga class and an event like this can easily cause a substantial disruption to a yoga teacher’s ability to earn a living teaching yoga. 

It is recommended that yoga insurance includes up to $1,000 in coverage with a low deductible to help replace what was lost and give yoga teachers the support they need during a trying time.

6.  Identity Protection Plan: Many yoga teachers rely on web services to conduct business. This exposes them to a compromised identity it can be both costly and time consuming to repair. A minimum coverage level of $25,000 in identity restoration services is highly recommended. 

The health and wellness benefits of yoga are undeniable. This practice has been used for centuries to help mind and body come together in the pursuit of holistic health. While most yoga teachers are extremely conscientious about their student’s safety during sessions. Accidents and injuries are unfortunately common due to the physical nature of the practice. 

According to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), the number of yoga-related injuries treated in emergency rooms nearly doubled from 2010 to 2014.

The National Institute of Health put out a study that showed a whopping one in five yoga students said they’d had some form of “adverse effect” from a yoga class, and one in ten reported at least one chronic adverse effect, mainly musculoskeletal effects. 

These statistics aren’t meant to frighten you so much as to bring awareness to the real types of risks facing yoga teachers today. Yoga is absolutely booming in popularity, requiring yoga teachers to be more vigilant than ever and having the protection of the right level yoga insurance in place from the get-go.

Finally, it is essential that all new yoga teachers or yoga instructors practice with confidence. A key factor to practicing with confidence is having the right insurance in place to provide peace of mind. Despite a yoga instructor's best efforts to teach safe yoga practices, injuries do happen. And they can be financially devastating without the backing of a solid insurance plan.

The following comparison of the major yoga insurance programs clearly concludes that beYogi All-Inclusive Yoga Insurance is the only provider offering complete coverage, and does so at the most affordable price. beYogi also does not apply any of the membership fees charged by a many of the other providers. 

In the comparison matrix, beYogi is the only insurance provider including Occurrence Form coverage in their policy.  If an incident occurs whilst the beYogi policy is in effect, but the claim is filed after it has expired, beYogi still covers you. This is "Occurrence Form" coverage which most yoga insurance companies don't offer, which means claims can only be filed while their insurance policy is still current.

beYogi is also the only yoga insurance providing Identity Protection Coverage and is also the only provider that includes a free professional website for yoga teachers and instructors to promote their businesses. The free website is mobile friendly and can be set up in minutes. 

It is also the only insurance provider offering coverage for more than 350 different yoga styles – in fact it covers as many as 490 different styles or modalities.  

You can find more information on why beYogi was selected as the best yoga insurance provider at beYogi All-Inclusive Yoga Insurance .



 

 

 

 

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