Online Training from Personal Trainers
With the rise of fitness stars such as The Body Coach, The Lean Machines and Kayla Itsines all building their empires online it’s not surprising that many personal trainers are now turning to social media to help boost business. So with this in mind, does moving your training online open you up to more claims and how can you help to protect yourself?
Uploading videos or tutorials to social media accounts which can be accessed by anyone can be risky – this means more people seeing your training and many of these you will not have met or spoken to before and therefore you will be unaware of their fitness and health. It also means you as a trainer are unable to see how people are performing an exercise and therefore it is impossible to tell if they are doing it correctly.
In addition, many insurance policies will only cover the policy holder within the UK. However, putting content on the internet where anyone can access it opens the gates for claims from other jurisdictions which you may not be covered for.
However, providing an online element can be lucrative to personal trainers and provide a great platform in which to grow and gain traction for their brand. So we’ve put together some tips to reduce the risk personal trainers expose themselves to when posting online.
If possible, keep this to a members only area. This could be a closed group on Facebook or even an online website which is password protected. This means you are able to control who is viewing the content and you have already done a PAR-Q (Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire) and ensured they are fit and healthy to be taking part.
Before posting any online content, whether video, written or other medium it is important to state that the exercise is undertaken at their own risk and to include a comprehensive description of who the content is designed for and factors they need to consider when partaking.
If done correctly, it is unlikely that a claim will come against a personal trainer posting online however if it is of vital importance that any trainer who does has adequate public liability insurance cover should a claim arise. This will cover any legal defence costs and compensation should that be the outcome.
As a result, Protectivity has worked with our underwriters to provide an add on to our personal trainer insurance cover which gives trainers who wish to post online content adequate cover. Ensuring that the personal trainer has taken these steps to reduce the risk this will cover them for any claim arising through the posting of online content across social media and other platforms.
To get an instant online quote and cover click here.