What Type of Insurance Do I Need To Be a Personal Trainer?

Personal trainers generally need to maintain multiple kinds of liability insurance including general liability, professional liability and product liability. Depending on the scope of your business, you may need additional coverage types to fully protect yourself against the risks associated with personal training.

Keep reading to find out what is included in a typical personal trainer insurance package and how you can sufficiently insure your business.

On This Page

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  What Is Personal Trainer Insurance?

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  What Types of Insurance Do Personal Trainers Need?

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  How Much Does Personal Trainer Insurance Cost?

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  How Do I Get Personal Trainer Insurance for My Business?

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  FAQs

What Is Personal Trainer Insurance?

In general, personal training insurance is a collection of commercial coverage types that could be useful for people in the health and fitness industry. Depending on where you purchase coverage from, it could be available as a specially-tailored insurance package marketed to personal trainers or as a general commercial policy that you customize to suit the needs of your small business.

There are numerous kinds of wellness instructors that could benefit from buying insurance for personal training including yoga, dance, kickboxing, martial arts, aerobics, aquatic exercise and general fitness instructors.

Why Do Personal Trainers Need Insurance?

Personal trainers need insurance due to the high risk of injury that their students face while participating in an exercise class or one-on-one session. Exercising was the most common cause of sports-related injury in 2021. There were 409,224 exercise-related injuries in 2021, with more than half of them happening to adults ages 25 to 64.^[1]

In addition, liability claims within the fitness industry can be expensive, costing $5,500 on average.^[2] If you’re a freelance trainer or independent contractor just starting out, paying for that claim out of pocket can put a strain on revenue and cash flow.

As a result, you need to maintain insurance as a personal trainer that can pay your students’ medical bills and cover legal costs if a student or client sues you due to an injury, enduring pain they experience after a training session or some other grievance they have with your consulting services.

What Types of Insurance Do Personal Trainers Need?

Read below for an overview of personal trainer liability insurance and other important coverage types worth considering for personal trainers.

General Liability

General liability insurance covers repairs, medical bills and legal expenses that arise out of claims of property damage, bodily injury and personal or advertising injury. For example, if you work as an aquatic fitness coach and a client asks you to hold their cell phone during a session, general liability coverage would kick in if you accidentally drop their phone in the water and ruin it.

It also covers injuries your students experience on the premises of your business that aren’t the result of a workout. For example, it could cover a student’s hospital bills if they were to trip over a misplaced dumbbell and break their arm.

Finally, general liability insurance can cover your legal defense if you are sued for defaming someone else or violating their copyrights through your marketing materials. This might apply if you are sued for libel because you put inaccurate information about a competitor on your website.

Professional Liability

Professional liability insurance, also known as errors and omissions coverage, insures you against financial losses surrounding claims that you were negligent or made mistakes in the performance of your professional services. For the most part, professional liability insurance covers injuries your trainees incur during training sessions.

For example, your errors and omissions insurance would take effect if you neglected to look over your client’s health information before a session and prompted them to do an exercise that exacerbated one of their existing medical conditions.

Product Liability

Product liability insurance protects you against claims related to a defective product. For a personal trainer, it would most likely apply if a client was injured by faulty exercise equipment. Your general liability policy may automatically include product liability coverage or you may have to buy it separately.

Commercial Auto

If you use a vehicle for business purposes, you will need to purchase a commercial auto insurance policy since your personal car insurance won’t cover commercial activities. States usually set the same car insurance requirements for commercial policies as they do for personal policies.^[3]

Workers’ Compensation

Workers’ compensation insurance provides coverage in case you are held liable for an employee’s sickness or injury. For example, if a trainer you oversee gets injured while leading a class, workers’ compensation coverage could pay for their medical care, rehabilitation and lost wages while they are out of work.

Every state has workers’ compensation requirements and most businesses with multiple employees need to maintain coverage in most states. The only exception is Texas, which only requires workers’ compensation insurance for companies contracting with the government.^[4]

Additional Insurance Options

If you are interested in even more comprehensive coverage for your business, you could consider adding these coverage types to your personal fitness insurance package as well:

• Commercial property insurance: Commercial property insurance covers any buildings your business owns and the contents stored inside of those buildings in case they are damaged by perils like fire and theft.
• Business interruption insurance: Business interruption insurance can make up for lost revenue if you need to temporarily shut down your business or operate out of a different location due to a covered loss. Many insurance providers sell business owners policies (BOPs) that combine general liability, commercial property and business interruption coverage.
• Rental damage coverage: If you conduct your business in a rental space such as a gym owned by somebody else, then you may need rental damage insurance to cover any damage to the rental property that you are held liable for.
• Cyber liability insurance: With cyber insurance, you can receive coverage for expenses arising from a data breach. This type of coverage is especially important if you store clients’ payment, contact or medical information digitally.
• Employment practices liability insurance (EPLI): EPLI can cover legal expenses if an employee accuses you of wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment or a similar violation of their rights as an employee.
• Sexual misconduct liability insurance: Many general liability policies exclude coverage for sexual abuse, which means you may need an insurance add-on to cover legal expenses if a client accuses you or one of your employees of sexual misconduct.^[5]
• Equipment breakdown coverage: Equipment breakdown insurance is necessary to insure your exercise equipment against short circuits, internal mechanical failures and other sudden sources of damage that aren’t covered by commercial property insurance.

How Much Does Personal Trainer Insurance Cost?

The cost of a personal trainer insurance policy generally ranges from $129 to $249 or more per year but available rates vary from company to company.^[2] For example, Insure Fitness Group charges $179 per year for a policy that includes general, professional and product liability insurance plus coverage for rental damage, stolen equipment and identity theft.^[6]

How much you will have to pay for personal trainer insurance coverage depends on several factors such as the coverage types and limits you select, the number of customers you have and services you provide, where your business is located and how many business insurance claims you have filed in the past.

You may also pay a different rate based on whether or not you’re a certified personal trainer. For example, Sadler Sports charges up to $76 extra per year for a one-year personal trainer insurance policy if you do not have a certification.^[7]

How Do I Get Personal Trainer Insurance for My Business?

You can buy commercial insurance from companies that specialize in insuring personal trainers such as Insure Fitness Group, NEXT Insurance, Hiscox, Sports Fitness Insurance, IDEA Health & Fitness Association, Alternative Balance, Sadler Sports Insurance and more.

In addition, you can buy personal trainer insurance through major insurance providers like Geico and Liberty Mutual, which partner with specialty insurance carriers to insure sports and fitness professionals. Conversely, you could buy from companies like Allstate and The Hartford, which sell general commercial insurance packages that can include all of the coverage types you should need as a personal trainer.