Contents
- About the insurance
- Types of insurance plans
- Student insurance
- What is public liability insurance?
- Instructor insurance
- Live blades extension cover
- Reporting an incident / making a claim
- Insurance and pregnancy
- Insurance policy documentation
About the insurance
As always, we must emphasise that the Academy of Historical Arts is not selling insurance, as we are not a registered or qualified insurance broker.
The Academy of Historical Arts is affiliated with the British Martial Arts and Boxing Association (BMABA), and all of our members gain membership with BMABA, which comes with the BMABA insurance policies.
We sell membership in our organisation, which comes with several benefits, including the BMABA membership that includes insurance. The end result is that yes, you do receive insurance cover by affiliating with our organisation, but we are not selling insurance as we are not insurance brokers, and we cannot advise you about insurance beyond trying to explain to you how we have understood the policy explanations from BMABA.
Please note: due to the regulated nature of insurance, we are not permitted by law to provide any formal advice or to act as an insurance intermediary, nor can we say for certain how the insurance policy might cover specific situations. It is up to clubs, instructors, and individuals to make their own informed decisions and to act as safely and responsibly as possible at all times.
Types of insurance plans
There are two types of insurance plans available: student and instructor.
Not every instructor needs to have instructor insurance (although it is recommended), but every club member (including instructors) must have student insurance.
Whenever you register a club member with us, we’ll make sure that the individual is registered with BMABA and so receives the BMABA student membership and student insurance.
If any of your club instructors would like to purchase instructor insurance, then this is an additional cost that will need to be paid for outwith the normal membership fees. We will then register the individual as an instructor with BMABA, and the individual will receive BMABA instructor membership and instructor insurance.
It is important to note that neither the AHA nor BMABA can provide explicit guidance or advice on insurance matters or the appropriateness of any insurance cover. The information below offers a few general examples, but these are not specific and are offered merely in a broad and illustrative manner. If you have any further questions, please contact us, but please realise that we legally cannot provide a specific answer to every question.
Student insurance
Student insurance comes with £1 million Student Public Liability Insurance (commonly referred to as “member to member insurance”).
Whenever an individual is acting as a student and is training or participating in an AHA or BMABA instructor’s lesson, the student public liability is in effect.
It does not provide cover if the student is leading a lesson without supervision (instructor insurance would be required for that), nor does it provide cover if the student is training unsupervised by an instructor (such as meeting up with friends in the park for some additional training).
The insurance policy does not cover the situation where a student is training with a non-AHA and non-BMABA club; in such situations, it would be expected that the other club should have sufficient insurance in place to cover participants. If this is potentially problematic, there may be the option for the insurer to give the “okay” to specific situations. Please contact us to describe the situation and say at which club (and under which instructors) you wish to train, and we can liaise with BMABA to see what can be done.
The student insurance policy covers training within the UK. If you intend to travel abroad to practise, and would like to find out if the insurance policy can provide cover, then please contact us and we will liaise with BMABA on your behalf. Needless to say, please contact us well in advance!
Does this insurance cover a student who attends an event?
BMABA have more information about this on their website:
https://mybmaba.org.uk/kb/does-my-student-insurance-cover-students-for-events/
This is always a bit of a grey area, because few insurers will offer automatic cover when students attend an event or club that is run by someone with a different insurer and underwriter.
If your students are going to an event run by a non-AHA or non-BMABA club, then you can ask the event organiser to send an email to compliance@bmaba.org.uk to request “sanctioning of the event, without insurance”. BMABA will assess the event, and they seem to be quite happy to rubberstamp the event so that the insurance policies for AHA students will be valid at that event. It needs to be the event organiser who gets in touch with BMABA about it; we cannot do anything about this at our end.
What is public liability insurance?
Public liability insurance will typically cover Accidental bodily injury to any person, or Accidental damage to property. This could include fellow members (including training partners, because this policy includes member-to-member liability) or a 3rd party (including businesses and venues, such as perhaps the venue in which you train). So, as an illustrative example, if you break a window in your venue by putting a sword through it, then the venue can sue you for damages, and (as long as there was no negligence and it was simple accident) the insurance will step in to cover your costs because you have public liability.
It does not cover situations where there has been any negligence, or where you deliberately cause damage to a person or to property. The insurance is not a catch-all safety blanket; the public liability is there to pay your costs for bodily injury caused or accidental damage to property.
Currently, the insurance does not cover any practice with sharp swords. This does not mean that you cannot do such practice; it simply means that while you do so, there is no public liability cover.
The case of negligence
Public liability insurance never covers situations where there has been negligence.
To offer a broad illustrative example, if Alan asks Bob to do something gently, and then Bob comes in hitting like a steam train and breaks Alan’s face, then Bob was negligent in his duty to care for his training partner, and the insurance will not cover him if Alan sues for medical costs or other damages. However, if Alan asks Bob to go gently, and Bob does so, but Alan accidentally steps face-first into Bob’s thrust, then this is an accident and there was no negligence, and therefore Bob will be covered if Alan sues for medical costs to fix his face.
Therefore, even though insurance is in place, individuals still have a responsibility to look after each other. If you look after each other, but an accident occurs, then the insurance will step in to cover the costs of claims arising in line with the policy; if you are not looking after each other, then that’s your fault and your own liability to pay for damages.
Public liability insurance for legal defences
One of the additional benefits of having a named public liability policy for each student is when it comes to UK laws for bladed articles.
It is a legal defence for carrying “knives” (including swords, including blunt swords, and possibly even including plastic swords) to be carrying them for a reasonable purpose (going to training, or back home afterwards), in a reasonable fashion (in a bag, not slung on your hip), and to have public liability cover. To receive the benefit of the legal defence, all three of these boxes must be ticked, and having a membership document proving that the named individual has public liability insurance for an activity involving these “knives” can only be beneficial.
Similarly, this will be what your members need to show to customs if they are ordering in a curved blade longer than 50 cm from abroad (because the law restricting “samurai swords” include sabres, blunt sabres, and possibly even plastic sabres).
Furthermore, it may be beneficial for individuals who possess antique swords, to show that they are part of a martial arts club and have public liability insurance.
Instructor insurance
Instructor insurance comes with instructor public liability (IPL).
Optionally, you can add professional indemnity (PI) insurance if you wish further cover.
BMABA usually require that instructors have some recognised instructor qualifications of at least 1st dan black belt level. However, they have been very understanding that this isn’t always feasible in the HEMA community right now, and have been willing to help newer AHA-affiliated clubs to have insurance cover for instructors.
Instructor public liability insurance
Note: this section is merely for guidance, as best we understand the issue, and cannot be considered professional advice. Please make your own informed decisions and come to your own informed understandings of the topic.
Instructor public liability (IPL) is designed to cover you for Accidental bodily injury to any person, or Accidental damage to property when acting in the capacity as an instructor under AHA. It is also designed to cover you if your students, acting upon your instructions, have an accident and sue for damages.
Your student public liability does not cover you in the situation where you are leading the class without any supervision by another instructor; the instructor at the top of the hierarchy who is in charge of any given lesson (even if they are just supervising and not actually giving the lesson) is the individual deemed to be the “instructor” for the lesson by the AHA, and everyone else participating in his or her lesson are deemed to be “students”. The “instructor” who bears that responsibility is the person who should have IPL.
Therefore, only a minimum of one person at any given lesson needs to have IPL, so only one instructor needs to have it in the club, if that instructor is present at every session. If there is the likelihood that the individual will not be present at some sessions, then ideally, steps should be taken so that any instructor who bears responsibility for a class has the appropriate IPL cover.
Your IPL will cover you for teaching HEMA in the UK. If you will be teaching abroad, and would like to enquire if your insurance policy could cover this, please contact us well in advance so that we can liaise with BMABA on your behalf.
Professional indemnity insurance
Note: this section is merely for guidance, as best we understand the issue, and cannot be considered professional advice. Please make your own informed decisions and come to your own informed understandings of the topic.
Professional indemnity (PI) insurance provides cover for the cost of defending you against allegations of professional negligence (such as giving your student incorrect or wrongful advice) and if unsuccessful, the cost of damages awarded against you.
As a rough illustration: you offer private tuition for a fee and you pocket that fee as your personal income. Over a period of time, you work with a particular student, and you teach something incorrectly – let’s say you do something really dumb and teach that the student should aspire towards collapsing their knee at every opportunity. The student does this, believing that your advice is good because they have paid you as a professional to give that advice in your professional capacity. However, their knee gives in, their ligaments snap, and they cannot work for six months due to the injury. They sue you in your professional capacity as a professional instructor for being the root cause of their current loss of earnings. Public liability insurance may not cover you in this situation, because you were negligent in a professional capacity with respect to advice given; this is where professional indemnity is designed to take over. As per public liability, wilful or gross negligence (such as issuing advice for which you are not qualified to give) may fall outside of the cover.
PI insurance is often used by people such as lawyers and accountants, upon whose advice people make decisions that may have major legal ramification if the decision is based on faulty information. PI insurance does not tend to be widely available or taken by martial arts instructors however it is available should you feel it is a necessary protection.
Your PI will cover you for teaching HEMA in the UK. If you will be teaching abroad, and would like to enquire if your insurance policy could cover this, please contact us well in advance so that we can liaise with BMABA on your behalf.
Requirements and eligibility
Individuals who are leading and coordinating sessions (even if you do not think of yourself as an “instructor”) can be eligible for this insurance, as long as you are running your sessions in a safe and competent manner. This means that your sessions must be in line with the AHA health and safety policy and protective gear policy, you must have and follow an equal opportunities policy, and the watchword of your sessions must be “safety” – in short, if you can answer the question “would Keith approve of this?” in the affirmative, you are probably all good. If the answer isn’t quite a “yes”, then you have some improving to do!
Furthermore, you should have a nationally recognised and up to date first aid certificate (the emergency first aid at work certificate is a good place to start). If you work with children and need PVG or DBS certification, then you should also possess this.
If you have any concerns or questions about eligibility, please contact us and we will ask the BMABA to clarify.
Price and levels of cover
You can opt to have different levels of cover for instructor public liability insurance. The price increases with the level of cover, although we have been offered very reasonable discounts on the RRP due to the size of our organisation.
| Insurance type | Level of cover | RRP | Price with AHA discount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instructor public liability | £5 million | £129.99 | £090 |
| Instructor public liability | £10 million | £184.99 | £120 |
| Professional indemnity | £1 million | £042.00 | £000 (free!) |
You should decide which level of cover is correct for you, considering the risks posed by the circumstances in which you teach, and choose the correct level of IPL cover.
You should also consider if PI insurance is right for you, and if so, add that to your IPL. Since we are currently able to offer it free of charge with each instructor insurance policy, it is probably worthwhile!
Note: we cannot give you any formal advice about what level of cover to choose, or whether or not you need this insurance. The best we can do is to recommend that you cover yourself accordingly, and consider how much it could cost you personally if a student or venue sued you for damages – do you have the spare cash to pay damages plus legal fees?
We might go as far as to suggest that it could be in the best interests of the club that the instructor has appropriate insurance cover, and therefore having the club pay for the IPL rather than forcing the instructor to fund it himself or herself is probably a very reasonable thing to do. While the instructor might have difficulty affording even the lowest level of cover, it would not be too difficult for a club acting together to find that money to ensure that the club leader has appropriate protection.
Arranging your instructor insurance
To be able to arrange the instructor insurance for you, we need the following information:
- full name
- date of birth
- residential address
- styles / disciplines taught (we will just put “HEMA” unless you particularly want to be more specific than that)
- any relevant qualifications or grades held
- first aid qualifications held (this needs to be a “yes”, and we need a photo or pdf of your certificate)
- level of public liability required
- any weapons that need endorsing (we will just put “HEMA Weapons” unless you particularly want to be more specific than that)
If you would like to arrange instructor insurance for one or more instructors in your club, please contact us and we can make the arrangements.
Instructor-to-student ratios
BMABA have more information about this on their website:
https://mybmaba.org.uk/kb/instructor-to-student-ratios/
This additional article might help to provide more information about “assistant instructors” who help to meet the requirements for the instructor-to-student ratio:
https://mybmaba.org.uk/kb/can-i-insure-my-assistant-instructors/
Live blades extension cover
If you would like to add cover to an existing student or instructor insurance policy for using live blades (ie sharp swords) while training, then this is something that can be facilitated, providing that you meet the necessary requirements for the cover to be valid.
The prices below show how much extra it costs to add the live blades cover to an existing insurance policy for a year.
| Insurance type | Level of cover | RRP | Price with AHA discount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student extension | £2 million | £4.50 | £4.50 |
| Instructor extension | £2 million | £100 | £75 |
| Instructor extension | £5 million | £120 | £90 |
Example: the total cost of purchasing an instructor insurance policy with £5m instructor public liability, £1m professional indemnity, and £2m live blades extension, availing yourself of the AHA discount, would be £90 + (free) + £75 = £165, although the RRP would have been £129.99 + £42+ £100 = £271.99 if you had approached BMABA yourself to make this purchase independently.
BMABA has more information on their website about the cover, conditions, and exclusions for the live blades extension.
Please note that to be eligible, you must have completed BMABA’s live blades cover Instructor Entitlement Award course. Part of this eligibility includes completing the BMABA instructor level 1 course and also the BMABA instructor level 2 course. All these courses are available free of charge.
We can arrange the live blades extension cover for you before you have completed these courses, for example if you want to get the cover purchased at the same time as your instructor insurance and you intend to complete these courses over the next week or two. However, if you do not meet the eligibility criteria for the live blades extension cover, then the underwriters would be within their rights to deny any claim against this extension cover because you have not yet met the eligibility criteria.
Reporting an incident / making a claim
To report an incident, please ensure you are logged into the AHA website so that, as a club instructor, you can see the reporting form directly below. If you cannot see the form below, then please contact us to gain the correct access permissions.
Insurance and pregnancy
BMABA have more information about this on their website:
https://mybmaba.org.uk/kb/pregnancy-insurance/
Insurance policy documentation
We do not issue documentation as standard for student insurance, although you can request a membership certificate for the paid-up members of your club, that will serve as proof of their AHA membership and their insurance cover with insurance policy ID.
We do issue documentation as standard for instructor insurance. Sometimes it takes a while for the insurer to send us the paperwork, so if time passes and it seems like we might have forgotten to send your documentation to you, please do remind us and we’ll get it sorted for you!
If you need to see the fundamental terms and conditions of the insurer’s policies, they can be found on the BMABA website here: