Why Fitness Centers Need Insurance
Professionals in this industry operate fitness and recreational sports facilities, such as aerobic dance or exercise centers, gymnasiums, ice or roller skating rinks, physical fitness centers; handball, racquetball, or tennis club facilities; and swimming or wave pools.
Fitness centers give community members a valuable tool every day, a way to look out for their health and well—being. Services offered may vary significantly, but your patrons are thankful for the opportunity. Just like you promote physical well-being to customers; it is also important that you look at the welfare of your fitness center. Insurance is a crucial component of your overall well-being. It protects your business reputation, financial assets, and your livelihood during claims and lawsuits.
Top Risks Fitness Centers Face
You may think that your guests or members would never file a lawsuit, but the truth is they happen every day. Take a look at the biggest risks you face:
- Injuries or Fatalities: Even though you promote healthy lifestyles, you can’t control how hard guests push themselves. If a member has a heart attack or falls off the treadmill and breaks an arm, you can be held responsible for all expenses associated with it.
- Bad Advice: Members often hire professional trainers for insight and advice. If one of your trainers offers advice that leads to injury or illness, the customer can sue your fitness center.
- Food Poisoning: Many fitness centers offer juice bars or other concessions to their patrons. If the food you serve causes individuals to get sick, they can sue you for damages including medical expenses, lost revenue from being off of work, and pain and suffering.
- Broken Equipment: Workout equipment in fitness centers is used hard all the time. Occasionally equipment may end up broken without your knowledge. If a weight bench falls while in use causing back injury, you will need to pay medical expenses for the injured party.
- Defective Products: Some fitness centers sell products including apparel, equipment, and nutrition supplements. If any of these products damage the customer’s property or cause injury or illness, you are responsible for replacing it or paying additional costs.
Other potential claims include employee injuries, data breach, or even auto accidents if you have a business vehicle or employees run errands on behalf of the fitness center.
Type of Insurance Fitness Centers Need
Fitness centers can choose a number of insurance policies to protect their business. The two most critical are general liability and commercial property insurance. Some carriers offer a Business Owner’s Policy (BOP) that provides both. Fitness centers with personal trainers also need professional liability, and those selling products benefit from product liability.
- General Liability: Covers you for bodily injury, property damage, and copyright infringement claims from guests or other entities.
- Professional Liability: Pays the costs the stem from your mistakes like when a trainer gives advice that doesn’t go as promised.
- Product Liability: Covers expenses that come from product defects of items you sell in your fitness center.
- Commercial Property: Pays to fix or replace business property that is damaged from an event covered by the policy. Covered events include fires and vandalism.
- Cyber Liability: Pays costs that arise when your computers or files are stolen. Costs include notifying those impacted, investigating the breach, and managing your reputation.
Cost of Fitness Centers Insurance
Every insurance carrier has a unique view on fitness centers which impacts the cost of insurance. The majority need to look at your loss runs, experience, and safety measures to calculate insurance costs. Juice bars, professional trainers, and selling products will also impact the final costs. You can request a quote for your fitness center insurance below today.