You love dance. That’s why you opened your own dance studio, right? The last thing you want to do is get bogged down with the nuts-and-bolts details of the business. And yet, you realize the importance of being properly insured. After all, without proper insurance, all your dreams and hard work could easily vanish if something unexpected should occur. Whether you’re a veteran or a brand new dance studio owner, you probably have the same questions and concerns when it comes to insurance. It can all seem like a completely foreign world — the terms, the prices, the coverage. What exactly do you really need and why?
Importance of Insurance for Dance Studios
While you’d rather focus on planning your next dance recital or showing your advanced dance students how to do a tour en l’air, you know that they need to master many basic steps — which may well be much less impressive or enjoyable than grand performances for which they’ll eventually be prepared. Well, you need to take some time to do the legwork to get proper insurance in place. Like stretching and rehearsing basic steps, insurance is a necessary aspect of running your dance studio. We hope these explanations will help you get started! Before you know it, you’ll be feeling confident about your studio’s insurance policy and enjoying the security of knowing everything you need is in order.
Liability Insurance Basics for Dance Studios
If you know about one type of insurance policy your dance studio needs to have, it’s probably Liability Insurance. And rightly so. Most places — including landlords, school districts, theaters — won’t allow your dance studio to utilize their space without a Certificate of Liability Insurance in place. Essentially, these entities want to make sure you have your own insurance so that they won’t be liable for any claims relating to your operations on their premises.
Essentially, Liability Insurance protects you as a business owner in the case of a lawsuit. In the case that someone endures some kind of injury (for instance, slipping and falling) in your studio or on your studio’s property, Liability Insurance coverage will protect you from that claim. It will also protect you from being sued if you damage another person’s property; your Liability Insurance policy will cover the cost of your defense and will settle claims (up to the limits of your policy, of course).
In order to have your Liability Insurance coverage extend to any lawsuits from your dancers (or studio participants), you will need to make sure that your coverage includes Participant Liability, which is typically excluded from general Liability Insurance policies.
In addition to Liability Insurance, your dance studio should have a couple other forms of insurance in place. To learn about those, check out our next post.
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