Workers’ Compensation for Massage Therapits

You and your team work hard to make your clients feel comfortable, relaxed, and reinvigorated. But what happens when a massage therapist is injured on the job? Massage therapy is a physically demanding career that requires employees to stand for long periods of time and use a lot of their body when providing services. So it’s not uncommon for massage therapists to experience repetition, awkward posture, and overuse injuries.

While you can take preventative measures to protect your therapists, injury is inevitable. Workers’ compensation insurance helps protect your business by providing financial assistance to cover medical care and partial wages for employees who are injured on the job.

Workers’ Comp Insurance for Massage Practices

No matter what preventative measures you have in place, workplace accidents can’t always be avoided. If a massage therapist experiences a rotator cuff or wrist injury while on the job, this can put them out of work for months. And these medical costs and lost wages can have a damaging impact on your business.

With workers’ comp insurance for massage practices, your business will not be responsible for covering all of these costs out of pocket. A comprehensive policy can help ensure your massage therapy clinic continues to thrive by helping to take care of the medical expenses and lost wages of the injured employee.

Massage Therapy Employee Injuries

Given the physical nature of massage therapy, employees are subject to a wide range of injury risks. Most injuries in the massage therapy profession are due to force, repetition, and awkward postures. However, there is also the possibility of sustaining injuries from improper lifting, slipping, or tripping. From a wrist or elbow injury sustained from repetitive massage movements to backaches that result from awkward positioning, there are a wide range of injuries that make workers’ compensation insurance a vital part of your massage therapy insurance.

While laws do vary across states, most businesses are required to have workers’ comp insurance to protect employees in the event of a workplace injury. Workers’ compensation insurance helps protect your massage therapy practice from devastating financial loss by covering medical expenses that result from a massage therapist’s injury or illness.

Most workers’ compensation insurance plans will pay for the injured employee’s:

• Ambulance costs and emergency room care
• Continued medical costs like follow up visits, physical therapy, medication, etc.
• Partial lost wages resulting from the injury

Liabilities for Massage Therapy Clinics

In addition to providing financial coverage for the injured employee’s medical expenses, workers’ comp insurance for massage therapy clinics also offers liability coverage. This type of professional insurance coverage protects your business from financial losses that can result from employee lawsuits over workplace injuries.

For most plans, workers’ comp liability insurance will help cover:

• Court costs
• Attorney fees
• Settlement payments
• Other related legal fees

While laws vary from state to state, most states do require businesses to have some type of liability insurance coverage. If you live in a state that requires your massage therapy business to purchase workers’ compensation insurance through monopolistic state funds, you may need to add additional private coverage to cover liabilities.

Massage Business Risk Management

Risk is an inherent part of owning a business. But there are certain steps that your massage therapy business can take to manage injury risks in the workplace. It helps to start with assessing your level of risk. Once you know what risks your employees are exposed to, you can work to create processes and trainings that aim to lower these risks and keep your employees safe, healthy, and happy.

Implementing preventative measures to lower risk potential in your business can actually help lower your workers’ compensation premium, as many insurance providers use risk assessment to determine policy costs.

Cost of Workers’ Compensation Insurance

There is no one-size-fits-all workers’ compensation insurance policy for massage therapy studios. The cost of workers’ comp insurance depends on a number of factors, including:

• Nature of the business
• Business jurisdiction
• Business payroll records
• Business history of workplace incidents

When you pay for workers’ compensation insurance, you aren’t just paying a premium. You are also investing in business protection that can keep your business healthy in the face of potentially devastating financial loss.

Cerity takes the hassle out of buying workers’ comp insurance by offering free, quick quotes for your massage therapy business. Using new technologies, we can provide straightforward pricing that’s easy to understand. To get a free online quote, check out our free workers’ comp quote tool.