Thread: instructor insurance in So. Cal - suggestions?

The studio I rent suddenly asked me for proof of insurance, and I've never been asked to have my own before. Does anyone have any recommendations for which insurance companies have good rates and are easy to deal with? I already feel like my car/homeowner insurance is a rip-off, so I don't even really want to ask them. I'm really not good at searching for old threads. Thanks for any help anyone wants to give!

: ) Lilla

Hi Lila, I (we) have used Myfitness.com
insurance. Its a policy that travels with David, I think its around 180.00 a year and has a good coverage limit. It is an individual policy that covers him no matter where he teaches since he does the workshops and classes in different locations. I have used K&K in the past too but they are VERY expensive.

I use myfitnessinsurance.com as well. It's $185 for a year of $1M per incident/$2M annual liability. I've never had any problems with them, but then again I've never had a claim to process either.

Please be advised that they no longer mail hard copies of their policies - if your studio needs a copy of the whole thing, you'll need to print the 50+ page PDF file out yourself.

Yay - thanks! I was just going to come back and jiggle this thread...LOL

I will check that out! Hopefully they can provide a "proof of insurance" document so that I don't have to print out 50 pages... ink cartridges are friggin' expensive these days!

: )

I just emailed my PDF to the park & recs as proof - if they need a hard copy, they can print it themselves!

I don't know how to alter a thread title, but another question for y'all:

Have you ever been asked to additionally carry Workers Comp insurance on yourself? I showed the studio I rent the myfitnessinsurance.com link and they said "yes that's great", but said that I additionally have to carry Workers Comp. This makes no sense to me, as I have never heard of anyone carrying Workers Comp on themselves. Has anyone heard of this? I'm in a back-and-forth thing with them about this now, and it's kind of critical because I'm already enrolling for my next set of classes starting in March...,f::

Whaaaaaat?? You dont have to carry Workers comp. Just a liability insurance that can list their place. But hey, I dont think you even have to do that if you are contracting the room and you have the insurance on yourself. It covers YOU whereever you are. Are you an employee of theirs on a 1099 or something? Where did they get the bright idea of comp? It will run you about 1500.00 a quarter or more, they really cant be serious.
If you cant work, you dont have class, simple as that.
I would wager they are incorrectly wording this and it is a liability for injury they are after.

Oh and hey, I work on a 1099 at my primary job and I dont have to have workers comp coverage.

Originally Posted by patrisha

Whaaaaaat?? You dont have to carry Workers comp. Just a liability insurance that can list their place. But hey, I dont think you even have to do that if you are contracting the room and you have the insurance on yourself. It covers YOU whereever you are. Are you an employee of theirs on a 1099 or something? Where did they get the bright idea of comp? It will run you about 1500.00 a quarter or more, they really cant be serious.
If you cant work, you dont have class, simple as that.
I would wager they are incorrectly wording this and it is a liability for injury they are after.

Well, what it looks like to me is that they had some hotpants just-outa-law school lawyer draft them up a new rental agreement, and they are accepting it as "boiler plate" and the gospel. Yes it says in the agreement that I am required to have a 1 million liability policy, AND worker's comp coverage. I told them that I don't think that's necessary and that if I need to carry worker's comp on myself when I already pay over $1000/month for health insurance, I will not be able to rent from them anymore. I am not a 1099 employee - I just rent. And teaching my dance classes is only a small part of my livelihood! And I don't see how as a non-employee I would have the ability to file a worker's comp claim against their insurance anyway... that's ridiculous!

They are now saying they have to ask their lawyer and get back to me ..c:: . So obviously they don't understand the verbiage themselves...

Thanks for the confirmation that this is weird....

Wow, good luck with all this.
I certainly cant imagine many dance teachers that can meet those terms. Lets see...how many classes at 15.00 per student would you need to teach to cover rent and insurances???
Freaking ridiculous.

Originally Posted by patrisha

Wow, good luck with all this.
I certainly cant imagine many dance teachers that can meet those terms. Lets see...how many classes at 15.00 per student would you need to teach to cover rent and insurances???
Freaking ridiculous.

Well.... the word just came back from the lawyer that in fact I do NOT need to carry Worker's Comp. Can you imagine if I had just taken that at face value and bought a policy at $1500/quarter?

It probably DOES mean, however, that I can no longer have my student teacher teach my Basic level classes. (That's probably what the workers comp referred to - having additional employees under the same insurance policy, but the legal clause in the agreement did not specify that). This is sad for both she and I. ..cr.:

Hi again, when i had Arturo teaching for me in Visalia, I paid his liabilty insurance as part of the compensation I gave him for handling classes.Now we have another dancer/student teacher here in SD under the EDA and we will be paying 1/2 of her insurance thru Myfitness for her. Would something like that work out for your student teacher? if you do something like this, you should ask her to promote your classes for you too. She or he should be someone you can trust to refer to you instead of buildiing a new student base for themselves.

Originally Posted by patrisha

Hi again, when i had Arturo teaching for me in Visalia, I paid his liabilty insurance as part of the compensation I gave him for handling classes.Now we have another dancer/student teacher here in SD under the EDA and we will be paying 1/2 of her insurance thru Myfitness for her. Would something like that work out for your student teacher? if you do something like this, you should ask her to promote your classes for you too. She or he should be someone you can trust to refer to you instead of buildiing a new student base for themselves.

Thanks, Patrisha, great ideas! Believe it or not, after all this, now today they have said that it's okay to have my assistant teach once a week without getting her own insurance. ..c:: And this was after she thought about it and decided that it would be a good idea for her to do so! I'm going to leave it up to her at this point. I went ahead and submitted my app at myfitnessinsurance and am waiting for my policy. Thanks for the tips, ladies!

I am glad to hear that it worked out for you. How silly that they put you thru all the drama before they had the correct information. Are they a young business without advisers? Sounds like a beginner mistake to me.
Still, glad it worked out. They will be wiser next time. Sorry the stress was at your expense.

Originally Posted by patrisha

I am glad to hear that it worked out for you. How silly that they put you thru all the drama before they had the correct information. Are they a young business without advisers? Sounds like a beginner mistake to me.
Still, glad it worked out. They will be wiser next time. Sorry the stress was at your expense.

Thanks, Patrisha - yes, they did at least apologize for the stress this may have caused. They are a small chain, and I think someone in the home office decided that they should be operating more like a big one, and they hired themselves up a lawyer to write them some new rental agreements not realizing that lawyers make mistakes too (I know mine sure does!). Hopefully this has been a learning experience ...