What is Professional Liability Insurance for personal trainers
As a personal trainer, you help a variety of people every day to help reach their fitness goals, giving them advice on training and pushing them to their fitness limits to get their desired results. Your clients come to you for guidance on their health and fitness plans- something which can also be one of the biggest risks you face as a personal trainer.
The risk of giving personal advice about to your clients about specific health and fitness is there is the potential for mistakes and the wrong advice to be given, we are human after all. You may thin your advice is the right course of action for them but you may not be aware of all their circumstances, making your client susceptible to injuring themselves.
Some of the main exposures you may be faced with as a personal trainer can occur from:
–Giving incorrect nutritional advice
– Failing to assess a client’s limitations, pushing them too hard causing injury
– Not experienced or having the knowledge of certain fitness equipment, failing to correct form leading to injury
– Establishing training plans that are not suitable for the client due to age, medical condition or other factors
What does Professional Liability Insurance for personal trainers cover
Professional Liability insurance (aka E&O insurance) is one of the first insurances you need to consider as a personal trainer. It offers coverage for those who provide professional services and advice to clients and is a different form of protection then General Liability insurance which typically covers for incidents like slips and falls and damage to third-party property. Professional Liability insurance gives you peace of mind for when professional advice goes wrong.
Understanding the key differences between Professional Liability and General Liability is essential, as there is a common misconception that a General Liability policy will also cover for professional errors as well. As previously mentioned, a General Liability policy excludes any advice that you provide in a professional capacity.
An example of a General Liability claim: You were mopping the floor and forgot to put up a ‘wet floor’ warning sign, and consequently a customer falls over and sprains their ankle. This is where General Liability would provide coverage for the lawsuit. However, if your client was following a fitness plan you specifically had designed for them and they sprained their ankle because the weights you advised them to use were too heavy, this is where you would need Professional Liability coverage.
Professional Liability covers not only the settlement or judgment awarded in a lawsuit but also the cost to defend the claim, even if you were not found to be negligent. The cost of hiring a lawyer can cost thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, an unplanned expense many small businesses cannot afford to fork out.
