Gymnastics liability and gymnast accident insurance is not the favorite topic of most gym owners and with good cause. It is something we hope we never need, but it is something for which we need to be completely prepared.
Get Personal Umbrella Insurance Coverage
While you should only need insurance for your Incorporated gymnastics business, it would not be a bad idea to get as much personal umbrella insurance as you can. it is reasonably priced and could come in handy if a lawyer is able to pierce the corporate veil of you gym business. Getting an umbrella insurance (probably with the same company that you have homeowners or other insurance with), is smart since this insurance is considerably less expensive than gym insurance and gives you additional personal liability protection.
Your Gymnasts Should Have Personal Health/Accident insurance
It makes equal sense to ensure that participating gymnasts already have their own health and accident insurance, because gymnastics gymnast accident insurance is secondary medical insurance. Your insurance coverage assumes gymnasts already have health insurance and you should either verify that or at least ask if they have it on your application form.
Insurance for Non-Profits
Non-profit organizations may also want their own gymnastics insurance or be covered with a rider addition to the gym’s plan. These are usually very reasonable in cost.
Insurance for Landlords
Landlords will also often require proof of liability insurance and their own insurance rider on your policy.
Charge Insurance Fees
Most gyms should finance the cost of insurance with a fee charged to students on a annual or session basis. This allows for favorable comparisons if parents are calling around to find out monthly prices.
Charge Students for All of the Insurance Costs
You will need to charge students the full insurance cost per student amount in the fee, not prorate it for the year since you will be charged for the student no matter how long they are enrolled. We recommend you charge 3 session fees (or session fees for however many sessions you have) per year any one of which will cover the insurance costs.
Get Coverage for Every Activity That You Do
Make sure there is trampoline coverage, birthday party coverage, outside the gym activities and coverage for any other activities you will be doing.
Financing Options
Some companies offer financing plans, which may be a consideration in a startup. Make sure you understand the financing costs and consider alternate financing methods.
We Recommend You Deal with Gymnastics, Not General, Insurers
In general, you may want to deal only with a gymnastics  insurance company directly and not a local agent, who may try to sell you insurance that is not specifically for gymnastics.  Unless you can trust your whole business to an insurance salesman or are going to take the time to read and understand pages and pages of the whole insurance coverage package, you will likely be better off going with an experienced  gymnastics insurer directly.
Number of Students
Pick and insurer with no name filing requirements! Although we don’t believe any of the insurers are doing this any more, some companies used to want you to supply the name of every student to be insured. Don’t do this, the paperwork is a nightmare and if the injured gymnast’s name is on the list, you have no insurance for them.
Report All Your Students
The trade secret is that many gyms under-report the number of students that they have either by reporting the number of students from a summer month where the number of students is lowest or listing higher numbers of preschool students versus older students who may cost more. We highly recommend that you don’t you risk your coverage doing this! But we know that it is not uncommon to hear about this. Just pass the cost of insurance on to your customers in a fee or add it into the price and be safe. After all that is the whole purpose of insurance.
Report the Minimum Number of Students Required
DO report the minimum possible number for a startup gym and then increase your coverage as your gym grows. DON’T anticipate say 300 students and pay for that number and then take a year to grow to that number. Start with 80 (or whatever the minimum for the company is) and increase as you grow and get paid insurance fees for students.
