What Professional Indemnity Insurance Is And Why Its Important For Sports Coaches
With sports coaching a lot of trust and respect is put upon you
, your athletes and team are listening eagerly to your instructions and making sure that they follow your advice. The advice that is given will be drawn from your own experience whether this is from knowledge learnt from books or from being a former athlete yourself.
When coaching on an individual basis youll be able to observe and advise your athletes on how they could perform better and where they may be going wrong. Your athletes are also going to show more attention and take your advice on board than when you are barking orders to the team as a whole but this is still an area that you will have to handle too.
When instructing a team or a large group you may not notice certain things like hazards or if an individual is doing something wrong, this could lead to injuries or accidents happening such as heavy training equipment falling or being dropped by someone who hasnt been properly trained on how to use it. The blame for these instances can often be left at the coachs feet as they should have spotted the problem and made steps to ensure it wouldnt happen.
This is an occasion where professional indemnity insurance could help to protect you as the coach from any legal action or compensation that is often claimed for. There are many other professions such as builders, architects and medical jobs that can be held for professional indemnity related issues like breaches of contract, libel and other situations.
As a sports coach any claims against you could risk your ability to continue coaching the sport you love and so it is important that you make sure you are covered by a relevant coachs insurance policy to prevent anything stopping you from continuing to coach your athletes and team.
As well as professional indemnity most sports coach insurance policies will cover other associated risks such as coverage for any broken, lost or stolen equipment. Many sports coaches dont have large financial backing and may even coach only part time as they volunteer whilst having another job, you dont want to be in the situation where you are forced to give up your job as coach so make sure you get covered.