Sivananda Yoga Liability Insurance

With NACAMS, we use our expert knowledge and experience in the field to produce a one-of-a-kind yoga insurance program that blends great coverage with great rates. For only $179 per year you get the peace of mind of full coverage for general and professional liability, product liability, and many other additional protections. Let’s compare this low, annual rate to a potential, if not all too common, claim that could present itself. 

During a difficult vinyasa, a student in your class pushes their body harder than they should and they tear a muscle. The torn muscle requires surgery and months of rehab. Because the student is a delivery driver, they are not able to do their job so have lost wages as well. The student decides to seek legal action against you for the full cost of the medical bills and their lost wages. With our insurance program, this professional liability event would be covered all the way up to $2 million and would cover both the claim costs and any legal defense costs you might need.

A really unique aspect of our program compared to other insurance carriers out there is that we choose to provide coverage for hundreds of different modalities, all included at no extra cost. Many programs only cover a limited few modalities then upcharge members if they want to add an additional covered service to their policy. We went the opposite route and covered the majority of popular services in use today because we know that the perfect asana often requires incorporating multiple techniques. Browse the more than 500 different yoga and wellness services we cover.

We know yoga instructors have a wide variety of choices for insurance today. When comparing your options, you need to remember this policy should be the best yoga insurance for you. Thinking of your unique situation, here’s a few key questions to look out for:

• Does the yoga teacher liability insurance program have adequate general and professional liability coverage limits?
  • General and professional liability claims are by far the most common we help our members with. General liability (slip and fall) provides members with coverage for third party claims of injury or property damage. Professional liability (malpractice) provides coverage for claims relating to the services you provided to a client. Our yoga insurance provides $2 million for each occurrence and a $3 million annual aggregate.
• Does the yoga insurance program include any additional layers of protection?
  • While general and professional liability coverage may cover the bulk of liabilities faced, without a few additional layers of protection, key areas could still present great risks to a professional. An identity protection plan is all included in our plans as part of an effective risk management strategy. 
• Is my service covered under the program?
  • One of the worst shocks you can experience is to think you are covered by your yoga insurance only for them to say that the unique services you provide aren’t actually covered under the policy. Our policies provide coverage for hundreds of different health and wellness services so members can focus on providing a great experience to their students rather than if a given service is covered or not.

Certainly. Students in yoga teacher training are unfortunately still opening themselves up to liability should an unforeseen event occur. While the possibility for this is less during your student training than as a professional, all it takes is one event to possibly sideline an entire career. We provide all of the same coverage limits, protections, and benefits of our professional policies to students at the discounted rate of only $60 a year. You could also potentially wait until you are nearly through with your program and then lock down coverage. That way, when you first enter the field you get to have full coverage and great benefits for a full year at the low students-only rate.

Definitely. In the yoga teacher liability insurance world, the concept of coverage following you is called “portability”. With our professional yoga insurance policy, members enjoy full portability. Even if you change your job or even move to another state, your yoga insurance policy will follow you as long as you still meet the requirements to perform services as issued by your new locale. Follow this link to find yoga insurance requirements by state.

Yes, this is definitely something we offer. Our benefits program is incredibly rich and we attract many that simply want to take advantage of the hundreds of dollars worth of perks. You can purchase a one-year benefits only plan which does not include insurance for just $39.

Indeed you can. Yoga is all about flow and flow requires flexibility in mind and in body. Whether you choose to guide students through their flows in a park, in your home gym, on a paddleboard, or anywhere in between, you will enjoy the full benefits of coverage under our yoga insurance program. If you decide one day that you want to start a yoga studio, you are still covered. Our yoga teacher liability insurance program includes full portability which means you get coverage no matter where you decide to provide services within all 50 states.

Only you can decide what is best for your situation but yoga insurance is an important, if not necessary, protection to anyone providing client-facing services. True, yoga is less stressful on the body than many other forms of exercise but a session can still be physically demanding which gives the possibility for injuries to occur. 

Even offering your services at all opens you up to many forms of liability. A liability is something you have a legal responsibility to pay. If a client were ever injured during your session and files suit, the courts may decide you are responsible for paying for their costs. You can certainly decide to forego purchasing insurance but you will be gambling your personal finances and your career should an unforeseen event give rise to a claim. 

A really important aspect of a yoga insurance program is whether it uses occurrence form coverage or claims made coverage. Occurrence form coverage says that it doesn’t matter if you file a claim after your policy expires for a claim event that happened during the time when the policy was active - the claim is still covered. Our yoga insurance program gives you a full two years after your policy has expired to report a claim.

For example, you provide a yoga class on 12/15 and then on 12/31 your yoga insurance policy expires. Months later, you get word that a student in your 12/15 class is filing a claim against you. With occurrence form coverage, you can still file a claim even though your policy has long-expired. Claims made coverage is the opposite - it says if the policy is expired, no claims will be covered even if the event occurred at a time when the policy was indeed active. Occurrence form coverage is employed in our yoga insurance policies and definitely the industry-preferred option.

Yoga liability insurance needs to provide an adequate level of coverage based on the risks inherent to the health and wellness industry. NACAMS is a recognized leader in yoga and alternative medicine and so designed our program to provide appropriate levels of coverage but still be affordable for our members. With that, we provide $2 million for each occurrence and $3 million in total for each policyholder per year in professional and general liability coverage. We also include $2 million in product liability coverage. We find these limits to be well suited for the industry.

Our policies comes with many different benefits included at no extra fee. Members get a free professional website, a monthly newsletter, free professional resources, and tons of member discounts on gear and accessories.