November 2016

Martial arts liability insurance is a tricky subject. It can be challenging enough finding a reliable insurer for athletic organizations, but in martial arts, your customers are coming in explicitly to learn how to fight; how to throw a punch, and how to take one. Your students are going to be taking falls, learning to block, kick and roll, and you’re going to see everything from sprained ankles to dislocated thumbs.

Generally when your students sign up, they’re going to be signing a waiver of liability. This will mean that any injuries you can reasonably expect to sustain in class, they’ll be getting it covered under their own medical insurance if necessary, and you’re not going to be getting sued for it. The keyword there is, of course, “reasonably.” This means you might not be protected if, for instance, something can be construed as negligence on your part.

This means that if you’d rather not be seeing a bump in your liability policy on a weekly basis, you’re going to need to do a little base-covering:

• Be reasonable about who you admit to your class (and what you have them do)Martial arts can be a great means of physical rehabilitation, it’s a rewarding pursuit for kids, the elderly, even those dealing with disability. It’s not something to jump into a week after open-heart surgery. Get an idea of every applicant’s health background, and exercise proper judgment in admitting new students. Likewise, be reasonable about what you can expect of each student. A 70 year old woman who’s here becau
  se it’s a fun way to stay fit is not who you want sparring against the 250 pound, weight-lifting security guard.

• Practice proper maintenanceLoose floorboards, cluttered space, bad wiring, slippery mats. If the environment that your students are utilizing is not a safe place to be practicing martial arts, it’s unlikely your waivers are going to protect you.

• Be the best teacher you can beThis, of course, should go without saying. You’re teaching the art because you want to pass it on. Poorly trained students, students who have been advanced to the next belt level before they’re ready, students who are not taught proper stretching and warm-up, are subject to injury that may well be found to be the fault of improper training. The martial arts are known as a means of “self-defense” because priority number one is not getting hurt, be it against an opponent or through improper technique.

The key to protection beyond your waivers are professionalism and passion for the art. Insurance is for when the unforeseen happens. The preventable is your job.

Aquarium insurance is different for every buyer. If you run an aquarium where you feature animals like sea turtles and starfish, then you need a very different policy than you would need insuring an aquarium used in, say, a restaurant or a hotel lobby. Likewise, exotic fish collectors need a different policy in place than either of the above-listed examples. Here’s what you need to know based on what you’re insuring:

Basic Aquarium Insurance

With a basic aquarium, whether it’s a ten-gallon tank to show off your goldfish or a fifty gallon tank to really set a room apart, you’re looking at a policy that will cover basic liability issues. It’s not just the aquarium you’re covering and the fish contained within, you also need to think about the liability involved should the aquarium break, leading to somebody cutting themselves on the glass, not to mention the water damage done to the facilities should the tank spill on antique floorboards or an expensive rug.

Marine Life Aquarium Insurance

Marine life aquariums tend to be the most expensive to insure. A basic liability plan simply won’t cover it. You’re looking at a zoo policy, covering the facility, liability for your visitors, and the animals themselves. These policies tend to cover your basic business risks, such as crime, company vehicles and workers’ compensation, but they also tend to provide extensive coverage for crisis response, emergency vacating and event cancelation and no-shows.

Exotic Fish Insurance

Your basic aquarium insurance typically does not cover exotic fish. In fact, the provider covering your tank and any liability issues attached to it might not even offer coverage for exotic fish. Many collectors of exotic fish take out specialty policies designed specifically for their collection, sort of like an actress having her legs insured. A single fish can cost thousands of dollars and be very expensive to keep healthy, so you’re looking for an insurer that offers high-risk, high-value policies for niche clients. You’re probably not going to get an exotic fish policy through the same people who cover your Honda Civic.

Showing off a bit of sea life in your building can be just the thing to set you apart. Who doesn’t love walking into a Chinese restaurant and seeing foot-long goldfish swimming around in a tank the size of a closet? But, of course, with the spectacle of an aquarium comes the additional liability involved with keeping marine life on dry land.

Performer insurance is not limited in what it can cover so much as who it can cover. Your basic performer policy is designed to cover a specific category of performer, that being: Performers who don’t do too much dangerous stuff in their act.

How that danger is defined is determined by a number of factors. For instance, if you’re insuring a movie star in a $250 million dollar blockbuster, then there’s a lot more money on the line than if you were insuring a fire-breather at a carnival. Some jobs are dangerous to the performer, some are dangerous to the insurer. The provider needs to calculate their risk accordingly in either event.

Typically, a basic performer policy is going to cover the less dangerous, less high-finance areas of the performing arts. A birthday clown, a celebrity lookalike, a comedian, a mime, a puppeteer, these are areas of performance that do not involve any immediate danger as part of the performer’s regular routine. On the other hand, a knife-thrower, a jouster, a stunt performer, a strength performer, a pyrotechnician, these are performers whose whole act involves playing with dangerous elements. That’s what makes them so impressive, and that’s why they typically need to seek out specialty insurance.

Typically, if you are working for a circus, a theater, a movie studio, then they’re going to have their own system of insurance lined up. The guys performing stunt shows at Universal Studios, for instance, probably aren’t buying their own health coverage.

One could reasonably think that, if their job isn’t particularly dangerous, then why bother getting insurance in the first place? The problem is that bodily damage or a liability case can completely derail a performer’s career. If you slip on stage and twist your ankle, then it’s hard to make it to your next belly-dancing gig. Performer insurance can help with things like lost wages and health issues that your health insurance might not cover so that you are not completely out of options if you find yourself injured on the job. Likewise, liability issues relating to your act can really take the wind out of your sails. For most working performers, it’s a nine to five job. For everyone who ever became a millionaire on their talent, there are ten thousand people who are just making a living. Most performers cannot afford a liability suit, and that’s where your insurance really comes in handy.

If you’re not covered by performer insurance, then it’s not a bad idea to look into specialty coverage. You want to make sure you have options should something go wrong.

A campground isn’t exactly the same thing as being out in the wild. Out in the wild, you’re on your own. You’re not going to find public restrooms and cookout grills a mile into a national forest. Campgrounds offer a few basic amenities in order to make that trip into the wild a little more comfortable. That’s why we don’t mind paying a few bucks to spend the night in one, and that’s why we expect the proprietors to carry some form of campground insurance.

If you run a campground, your customers are going to be out there playing with fire and using hatchets and pocketknives. Some element of danger is to be expected on a camp site, in truth, it’s part of the lure of a camping trip, getting out of your safety zone, putting yourself into a place where you’re going to need to rely on your own abilities. But, on a campground that you’ve paid your ten, fifteen dollars for, you do expect some sort of accountability. So in order to ensure that you don’t need to collect on your liability policy any time soon, what sort of safety should your visitors be able to expect?

The basic rule of thumb is: Whatever you offer, you have to make sure it’s in proper working condition. If you offer RV hookups at your campground, routine maintenance is a must. A careless camper has only themselves to blame, but septic backups and faulty water and electric supply are issues that rest entirely on the shoulders of the provider.

Campers might not mind a campsite with no public restroom, but if they walk into one to find a hornet’s nest, they might hold you responsible for the stings. If you don’t provide barbecue grills, campers can dig a fire pit, but if you do offer a grill, and the coals fall right out a hole rusted into the bottom and it starts a fire, that’s on you. It’s all about letting your visitors know what they’re getting so that they can plan their visit accordingly.

If something is out of order, make sure your visitors know that it’s undergoing repairs or cleaning or maintenance, post it to your Facebook and anywhere else you’re listed. Campers aren’t the most high-maintenance demographic, they don’t expect anything more than what you’re willing to promise them, so don’t promise them anything you can’t deliver, and they won’t ask anything of you that you don’t have available.