Three Types of Workers' Compensation Insurance Gym Owners Should Consider

When you own or manage a gym, you're in charge of making the most important decisions. From hiring new staff to what equipment to install, you need to handle it all. This includes insurance policies. 

One type of insurance that almost all types of gyms need is workers' compensation insurance. In fact, most states require you to carry a certain level of this type of insurance to cover a variety of situations. 

Workers' comp insurance protects your gym and personal assets if one of your employees is injured on the job. From a pulled muscle to a broken foot, injuries and accidents happen in seconds, but you don't want to pay for them for the rest of your life. 

This is where workers' compensation insurance comes into play. There are several benefits that this type of insurance can offer to your staff members when they're hurt. It's a good idea to consider each benefit carefully to choose the right policy for your business. 

Here are a few of the types of benefits a workers' compensation insurance policy can cover:

Medical-Only Coverage

When an accident or injury happens, your staff member needs to see a doctor immediately. Whether it's a quick visit to a family doctor or an extended hospital stay after surgery, the cost of medical care can quickly run into a lot of money. 

A medical-only coverage policy can cover these costs. It will also pay for any prescriptions your employee needs after an accident or injury in the workplace, which can save you a lot of money that you'd otherwise need to pay for your profits. 

According to Debt.org, in 2017, the average cost of a visit to an emergency room was $1,389. This is just an average, so the actual cost of a visit after an injury can be much higher, and it doesn't include a hospital stay. 

You might think that you provide health insurance for your employees, so they can use that insurance if they're injured on the job. No, they can't. If you attempt to file a medical claim for an injury that happened in the workplace on a regular health insurance policy, the company won't pay it. 

You'll end up paying for your employee's medical care out of pocket, which can add up quickly. If you don't have a minimum of medical coverage in your workers' compensation insurance policy, you might find yourself in a financially compromising position. 

As the gym owner, you're responsible for any workplace injuries even if it's an avoidable accident. Whether the employee was negligent or another staff member didn't follow the correct procedure, the gym is responsible for taking care of an employee's medical bills when they're injured at work. 

Short-Term Disability

If an injury is bad enough, your employee may need to miss a few days, weeks, or months of work. Since the accident or injury happened in the workplace, the expectation is that the staff member receives some kind of payment while they're out of work. 

As the gym owner, it falls to you to provide them with compensation during this period. This isn't for employees who are allowed back to work on light duty, but for staff members who can't come into work at all. 

Generally, short-term disability is for workers who need to be out of the workplace between a week and six months. If you need to pay an employee during this time, it can really add up, because you also need to pay the person who replaces the staff member in their absence. 

While you might not need to pay their full salary while an employee is out on leave due to a workplace injury, you do need to pay a percentage of what they'd normally earn. The short-term disability policy as part of a workers' compensation package will cover this percentage for you. 

The insurance company handles all the paperwork and communicates with the employee's doctors to ensure that everything is done correctly. Even if an employee briefly returns to work after an injury on the job, they might still need to go out on short-term disability. 

Adding short-term disability to your workers' compensation insurance policy helps to protect your gym and ensures that an employee can't sue your business for lost wages during their recovery. 

Permanent Disability

Sometimes, a workplace accident or injury is so bad that the employee is never able to return to work, or it takes them much longer than the length of a short-term disability claim to recover. They're considered permanently disabled. 

If you don't have a workers' compensation policy with a permanent disability rider, your small business could be on the hook for paying wages and medical care for many years to come. In some cases, the employee also gets a lump sum payment for their injury, which can be in the tens of thousands of dollars. 

A permanent disability can leave your gym paying a partial amount of a person's salary for the rest of their lives or until you end up going out of business. In some cases, the employee might sue the gym and you personally. You need a permanent disability policy to protect all of your hard work. You might also consider death benefits.

Death Benefits 

While most of the accidents and injuries in your gym are going to consist of broken bones or torn cartilage, there's always the chance of the accidental death of one of your staff members. The death of one of your employees at your gym is tragic, but realistically, it can also be expensive. 

You don't want to think about this possibility, but it's essential that you make sure your business is covered if a death occurs. Death benefits can be added to a workers' compensation insurance policy to provide the family of your employee with money to help move forward. 

Workers' compensation insurance is essential for your gym. It's probably required by your state. However, there are varied policies available, and you need to find the ones that meets your needs. At Nexo Fitness Solutions, we can help you find the right policy for your unique situation.