“Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order,” wrote Samuel Beckett.
While that might work for dancers, dance school owners and their agents need to think about insurance.
“Some standard carriers might provide coverage, but we include accident medical coverage in our policy,” said Mark Beck, senior vice president of K&K’s Mass Merchandising Division. “If you have a dance school with a lot of students, somebody could get injured and what this extra coverage does is provide accident medical benefits above what the person may have on their own, and it may dissuade someone from filing a lawsuit if they know their medical bills are paid in an accident, so that is a little something extra we include for dance schools.”
Beck said some standard companies may exclude coverage for participants in certain activities, such as dance. “Ours policy specifically covers that, so if someone is injured and sues, the dance studio is covered,” Beck said, noting that
K&K insures thousands of dance schools and studios.
“We are one of the few specialists in this area,” Beck said. “We can provide a competitive quote because this is what we do: We specialize in these kinds of sports, recreation, leisure type activities.
“If your dance studio teaches a lot of younger kids, sexual abuse/molestation risk is something that is more prevalent in today’s society unfortunately. A lot of standard companies exclude that coverage, but, we include that as an option in our insurance package,” Beck said.
“Molestation is a risk. Nobody is going to say they think it is going to happen. They think they know their employees really well. However, if they hire an independent teacher, they never know when these allegations could come up. It is coverage they should consider because if allegations come up, whether they are true or not, the school could spend a lot of money to defend itself even if nothing actually happened.
“If someone entrusts their child with you and they drop their child off for your class and they later get the feeling something bad happened, an attorney is often the first person they will consult,” Beck said.
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K&K offers e-commerce websites so that agents can simply go online and fill out a quick application and purchase coverage on behalf of their clients instantly,” said K&K Marketing Manager Lorena Hatfield. She said agents can use paper applications if they want to, they can call in and speak with someone if they want to, but that they can also get coverage for most dance schools entirely online. “It makes it very convenient for the agent, and they can earn a commission through our website.”
Knowing that many agents have never secured this type of insurance for a client before, Beck said the company allows even agents who have never done business with K&K before to go online and buy insurance once they complete a simple online registration process.
“They need to register so they can save any quotes they might work up, save any purchases. There isn’t any kind of prescreening process. It is an open market and they can conduct business with us easily, even the first time they do it,” he said.
In addition to covering liability, K&K has coverage available for property owned by the school, such as specialized flooring and other contents.
“The way we structure our coverage, we can often provide higher limits at a lower price point. A dance school can buy $5 million in coverage for much less than they may pay elsewhere,” Beck said.
“When you talk about expertise, it is important to mention that K&K has an in-house claims staff with extensive experience in our very specific sports and leisure activities,” said Hatfield. “We are very familiar with the ins and outs of handling claims and resolving issues correctly and as quickly as possible, and that is not something every insurer can say, especially not the standard carriers. This is what we do,” she said.
“Our underwriters understand the industry,” said Beck. “They won’t say to your client ‘you do what for a living?’ They understand these kinds of businesses and the unique aspects of operating them, like utilizing waiver and release forms. They are very experienced in the industries we serve.
“From the agent’s perspective,
working with someone who does just this, nothing else, can be very helpful. Our underwriters can help them through this. If an agent has never worked with businesses like these, we can walk them through what to look for, what to ask for, etc.”
