We have noticed over the last few years that more and more massage therapists and manual osteopathic therapists are opening their own small businesses. This is not surprising as RMTs and MOTs are often quite entrepreneurial. While running a business is not easy, there comes a satisfaction from working for yourself and making the business decisions rather than working for others and having little control of the direction of the business.
For those who do open their own business, keep in mind that your CMMOTA liability insurance is an individual liability policy that is designed to cover you as an individual practitioner for approved massage therapy and/or manual osteopathic therapy operations. This means the policy will not extend to provide coverage to any business name and does not cover your clinic if you are a clinic owner. This policy will not extend to cover you, your clinic, any employees or sub-contractors working for you, or your business partners, if you or the clinic are drawn into a lawsuit due to any of their actions. This policy is also not intended for a Commercial Office space you may be renting over 200 SQ FT, or if you have more than $10,000 of contents. Coverage will also not extend for any practice outside of Canada.
Clinic owners will have a need for contents coverage to protect against perils such as fire, wind and weather, water damage, sewer back-up, theft and vandalism to name a few. Contents will include equipment such as massage tables, linens, oils, office furniture, computers and stock. As a tenant or leaseholder, you may also be required to insure the value of any leasehold improvements to the leased unit.
More important than even contents coverage is the need for Commercial General Liability coverage in case the clinic is sued for injury or property damage. Common examples are slip and falls and trip and falls. Even if the clinic is not found responsible, there will often be legal costs to defend a lawsuit. Your Commercial General Liability will provide such coverage.
It may also be prudent to look into a Malpractice Liability policy for yourself as a business owner, especially if you will be marketing various services provided either by yourself or by others. This is especially important if you doing so as a limited or incorporated company and/or if there are any employees or subcontractors working for you.
A clinic is exposed to litigation if one of the practitioners causes an injury, whether it be an owner, employee or sub-contractor. While the individual practitioner would likely be assigned primary fault, the owner/corporate entity would more than likely be named in a suit and potentially face a percentage of fault depending on the situation. The individual practitioner’s malpractice liability policy would pay to defend them as an individual but not the clinic or clinic owners. The clinic would need its own malpractice liability to cover defense costs.
The only time this may not apply is if the only other practitioners are sub-contractors who DO NOT bill through the corporate entity but simply sub-let. There would have to be no employees in this scenario. The ownercorporate entity may not require Malpractice Liability in addition to its practitioners. If the owner is merely providing space and the practitioners are running their own independent businesses, the owner should not be exposed to professional liability. There are three caveats to this scenario, which may prompt you to look into extra insurance anyway:
• One is that they should obtain professional legal advice on their specific arrangement to ensure there is nothing unique about it that will attract liability.
• Secondly, judges and juries can be creative and stretch legal concepts when faced with a sympathetic plaintiff.
• Finally, even if liability does not exist, nothing prevents a plaintiff from including the owner in a claim and legal fees would be incurred to defend / extract them.
Given this, we advise in any situation where the owner is associated with an individual who is providing professional services that there is a potential to attract malpractice liability claims, and the purchase of malpractice liability insurance is advisable, if it is available.
Fortunately, the CMMOTA program insurer has a policy that will address the insurance needs for many small clinic owners. These policies provide coverage for your contents, Commercial General Liability and malpractice liability. This policy is designed for small clinics that fulfill the following requirements:
• The total number of employees/practitioners (whether employees or contractors), including yourself, working at your location does not exceed 3
• Gross revenue(revenue before expenses) does not exceed $120,000 per year
• Value of the contents owned by the clinic does not exceed $55,000 (this amount includes the value of your leasehold improvements if your lease makes you responsible for insuring them)
• Leased/rented space does not exceed 800 SQ FT
• Those clinics that do not have more than 1 location
If these parameters are not met, there are still a number of insurers in the market place who will deal with massage clinics of all sizes. Dusyk & Barlow Insurance Brokers Ltd has access to a number of markets who can assist with clinic policies of all sizes. We can help you navigate through these choices to find the best fit.
