With the news that the Register of Exercise Professionals (REPS) is no more, it meant when my insurance renewal in September 2020 came about, I needed to find new fitness class insurance cover.
I’d always loved the ease of renewing my REPs membership and insurance in one go and tbh, on the one occasion I did look into it, I discovered that I was getting the best cover, and value for money even though I had to pay for my REPs membership on top.
The gym I currently work at want a minimum of £5,000,000 Public Liability coverage so that’s something I needed to factor in when choosing my cover.
And with me now offering online fitness classes through Zoom, I needed to ensure my insurance covered this to a level I was happy with.
Insurance Provider Options For Fitness Classes
- EMD
- policy has no upper limit for participants, with the simple caveat, that the instructor has to maintain a duty of care to all participants.
- Protectivity
- only cover up to 16 people in online classes and suggest you record and store every class for 36 months.
- Balens
- found their website tedious having to tick off every single area of fitness I would want cover for.
- FitPro
- UK Coaching
- offering the same insurance as REPs previously did.
- Insure4Sports
- can teach up to 30 in online classes but they stipulate everyone taking part in live (one way and two way) or recorded sessions must complete a PARQ. They also want FB & IG classes to be private which is virtually impossible.
I do urge you to go and do your own research as everyone’s need will be individual. I’ll cover below the two main policies that stand out for me and why…
Who I Chose To Insure With
The main decision for me came down to EMD and UK Coaching. With UK Coaching I know what I’m getting as it’s the same policy as I had with REPs. With EMD I would get membership of their organisation as well as insurance cover.
However, I found the information on the EMD website very vague. I signed up for an account thinking they would detail the insurance cover but in fact there was no more information that I could find.
I did hear directly from EMD and was provided with some clarification which I have edited into the post.
There are some benefits to having an EMD membership which should be noted – and you don’t need to have their insurance. Some of the benefits (at the time of writing this post) include discounted PPL, discounts on CIMSPA membership, free 3 month trial membership on the new Mygroupfit Music app and a host of practical resources such as health and safety templates, risk assessments and PAR-Qs.
EMD UK
EMD PT Pro Support Package – from £64 (as of November 2020)
- £10m public liability, professional liability and product liability
- £2.5k personal property and great personal accident cover
- covers live, on demand, outdoors, all opportunities for delivery
- EMD UK Group Exercise Membership starts from £49 including membership
UK Coaching
UK Coaching Insurance for Exercise and Fitness Professionals – £65 per year (as of September 2022 when I last renewed)
- public liability (£10 million)
- personal accident cover
- covers you for online and virtual training, including general videos.
With UK Coaching you can coach and work with clients remotely, including hosting live workouts or uploading pre-recorded instructional videos. UK Coaching also provide full details of the policy before you purchase, so you know 100% what you’re getting.
In the end, I chose to insure with UK Coaching. This was mainly due to limited time to research into the various policies so it was easier to stick with what I knew. UK Coaching also increased their pricing from £56 per year to £65 per which will I imagine, have an impact when I come to renew again.
Having been given more information on the EMD policies and membership benefits – and the fact they revisited all their packages and reduced prices across the board – I probably would have gone with them.
But at least my research is complete ready for next year!
As we all know, insurance is one of those things that we purchase and hope that we never actually need to use it! Really, using the insurance cover is when we will really know it’s worth but until then, we have to base our experience on customer service when taking out the policy.
Do you have an insurance provider you recommend?!
Elle
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