Fitness business owners have a lot of their plates. Membership, equipment, safety, cleanliness, accounting, payroll, and the list go on and on. Business insurance is on that list too.
In our previous articles that can be found here, we have discussed the types of insurance coverages needed, why insurance is a need, and why to work with INSocial Risk Advisors.
Now, let’s share some real examples of claims in the fitness industry:
Claim 1: As a group session of yoga was completed in the separate yoga room of the fitness center, a member walked out towards the water bottle fill-up station. Right before she arrived, she slipped and fell. A few minutes prior, an employee noticed some water on the floor, so they got the mop and cleaned the water. However, the employee forgot to put the “wet floor” sign out; therefore, the member had no warning that the floor would be slippery. The member suffers multiple injuries and sued the fitness center. The total payout of the claim was $128,000 due to hospital bills and the lawsuit. The coverage that paid was General Liability.
Claim 2: A new member just signed up for a personal training session and was very new to lifting weights. The personal trainer understood this, so the trainer was very careful in planning the workouts to avoid any possible injury or uncomfortableness. During the third session, the trainer demonstrated a way to use a piece of equipment, and then the member did the exercise. The member does the lift but gets injured in the process. A day later, the fitness center is notified that the member is suing the gym and the personal trainer saying that the trainer instructed the member incorrectly on how to use the equipment. The fitness center was named in the lawsuit, as well as the trainer. The trainer was found to have instructed the member correctly and won the lawsuit. However, there, defense and attorney costs incurred to the tune of $28,000. The coverage that paid was Professional Liability.
Claim 3: After the fitness center owner got home, he received a call around 1:30 am from the police. Someone had broken into his gym and stolen various small equipment and four computers. As the police conducted their investigation, the gym owner filed a claim with his business insurance for $10,500 for the stolen equipment and computers. The coverage that paid was business personal property.
Claim 4: An employee was completing a new member application on the computer and received multiple errors. She called her boss, the owner of the gym, and he came in. It turns out, the data system the gym used had been hacked, and the hackers locked everyone out of the system. For 13 days, the insured could not access their information nor their members’ information. The hackers had access to 220 member records, including names, addresses, dates of births, and passwords. The gym was forced to bring in experts to unlock their systems and ensure that the hackers no longer had access to the members’ data. Also, the gym lost members because they did not feel safe giving their information to the gym. The gym was able to spend some of the claim money on reputational repair and any other cost incurred due to the covered loss. The payout was $64,000. The coverage that paid was cyber.
We have many other examples that we will share with you, but this gives you a small sampling of just how much exposure is out there for fitness businesses.
If you want to find some ways to help you prevent insurance losses, click here!