Massage Therapist Insurance
Occurrence form, claims-made, aggregates, and liabilities - oh my? The world of massage insurance can be pretty confusing. With all of the different companies out there, how do you know you are getting a policy that will adequately cover you in the unfortunate event that a claim comes up at some point during your career? We’ll go over the important factors massage therapists need to be aware of in order to make the best decision for themselves and their careers when it comes to purchasing a sound massage therapist insurance policy.
What is Massage Therapist Insurance Coverage?
InsureLMT Massage Insurance Plus primarily covers two main areas of liability for any massage therapist performing hands-on services to clients. These areas of general liability and professional liability will be discussed later but here we’ll look at the premise behind liability insurance.
The law dictates that when someone else acts in some degree of negligence, and in doing so causes you harm - whether that’s damaging your property or causing an injury that requires treatment - the law allows for the victim the ability to seek restitution from the party responsible, including filing a civil lawsuit.
Being at the receiving end of a lawsuit can be incredibly stressful. Legal defense fees can run in the thousands of dollars. For hardworking therapists, the costs related to a claim against them could prove to be the ruin of their personal finances or stop a career in its tracks. Hence, the necessity for protection from common claims that come up in the industry. Massage therapist insurance provides this protection in the form of a financial assurance that the carrier will cover the costs associated with a claim event, per the appropriate provisions of the policy you hold with them.
An insurance policy is in effect a contract between therapist and carrier. The former agrees to pay an agreed upon premium in exchange for the ability to shift certain risks away from themselves and their practice. The carrier agrees to assume these risks and the financial responsibility of providing remuneration in the event of a covered claim.
Understanding a Policy’s Coverage
Coverage is pretty basic for insurance, but it can easily be overlooked when many companies each list several different coverage areas. First up, it’s important to make sure the services you provide are actually covered. We cover more than 500 different services, something not every competitor can come close to. Let’s look over different areas of a policy’s coverage:
Professional Liability Insurance:
- liability inherent to providing professional service. You’ll hear this described as “malpractice” - that is, someone claiming the service you provided was the cause of their loss. For therapists, this could be a client alleging your deep tissue session went a little too deep and their ensuing pain and medical treatment is your responsibility to pay them back for.
Personal Injury & Advertising Coverage
- this coverage can help protect you if you’re accused of libel, slander, or false advertising.
General Liability Insurance:
- this is liability for claims of third-party injury or property damage. Many call this type of coverage “slip and fall” insurance because it covers claims like the customer who says the puddle of water on the floor in your studio caused them to slip and hurt themselves.
Occurrence Form Coverage:
- this type of policy allows member’s policy to lapse and still will afford coverage for a claim so long as the event that causes the claim occurred during the time when the policy was still active.
Coverage & Pricing
- Occurrence Form CoverageIf a claim is filed for an event that occurred when you had coverage, you will still be covered, even after your policy expires.
- Professional and General Liability InsuranceIn the case of a malpractice or trip-and-fall scenario, InsureLMT covers $2 million per occurrence, or $3 million per year.
- Digital Proof of InsuranceReceive an instant digital certificate of coverage after completing your InsureLMT application.
- Instant CoverageYour coverage begins instantly after completing your InsureLMT application.
- Identity Protection PlanInsureLMT offers $25,000 worth of coverage that reimburses expenses caused from identity fraud.
- Personal Injury & Advertising CoverageCovers up to $2 million and can help protect you if you’re accused of libel, slander, or false advertising
How Limits are Set
Limits can be easily overlooked. You figure you have hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars worth of coverage so obviously you’re good in the event of claim, right? Well, not necessarily. A company that tries to tempt you with a low premium based on low limits may be doing you a disservice when the cost of a claim is not entirely covered by your insurance policy. A good limit is neither too low or too high, but rather set after truly understanding the industry, the risks involved, and the costs of covering these risks.
Massage therapist insurance limits should always be set in a manner that balances ample coverage with affordability. We do this by providing for what’s actually needed and not selling our members more than what they need.
- Our coverage/protection limits include:
- Professional & General Liability Insurance: $2 million per occurrence, $3 million annual aggregate
- Identity Protection Plan: up to $25,000 in services to recover from identity fraud
- Personal Injury & Advertising Injury: $2 million per occurrence and per year
How Soon Do You Receive Coverage?
Some massage therapist insurance companies can take several days to review the application and actually apply coverage. But this approach is somewhat antiquated and doesn’t always work in the real world. With InsureLMT, as soon as you click “check-out” after completing the online application you get a certificate of insurance.
Changing Jobs and Employers
Look carefully at an area referred to as “portability”. Some carriers do not afford coverage if you change jobs or move to another state. Our massage liability insurance program provides full portability with our plans which means no matter where in the United States (not including U.S. territories) you practice, your coverage follows you wherever you go as long as you are following the guidelines within that state in which you practice.
Massage Therapist Insurance for Students
It can be so easy to get lost in all the material you’re learning during massage school to stop and think about the what-ifs of a liability claim arising any many insurance programs out there don’t offer insurance for massage students anyway.
To protect this next generation of vital therapists, InsureLMT provides a student policy for only $35 for a year of coverage. Students can opt to wait until they are nearing graduation before purchasing this policy and would thus have great coverage for most of their first year in the professional world all at one really low student rate.
Let’s Talk Massage Therapist Insurance!
Our capable agents are always ready, willing, and able to help you understand any of the topics we’ve covered here and answer all questions you may have. They can absolutely help you through the steps to getting insured or you can fill out our online application and get immediate proof of insurance.
Our massage therapist insurance program is built on the pillars of convenience, affordability, great coverage, and fantastic service. Contact us now.
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