Who pays for breakages?

[Fluffernutter]

I run a small music school from a building which I rent. My instruments and computers are insured but an incident yesterday made me wonder what would happen if a student caused expensive damage to an instrument? Should I have something written in my terms & conditions that all breakages have to be paid for? I can see that being a bit of a nightmare if a child broke something without the parent being there and me then trying to get the parent to pay. Or do I just claim against my insurance, which would put my premium up I'd imagine?

Yesterday a student knocked a digital piano off the stand by accident sending it crashing to the floor and smashing off another nearby stand on the way down. No damage was done thankfully, but it made me wonder what would have happened if it had been damaged, or anything else at work by a student.

Any advice please?

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

That's what your insurance is for!!

 

[Fluffernutter]

That's what your insurance is for!!

Fully aware of that, but my premium will go up and up if I'm regularly claiming for kids damaging things.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Malicious damage is one thing, but a cidents do happen!

 

[DontAsk]

Fully aware of that, but my premium will go up and up if I'm regularly claiming for kids damaging things.

So charge more.

 

[Newchodge]

You are teaching children. Children have accidents and can be a little unaware of their surroundings. If your insurance covers this, claim. If it doesn't, get a new policy. If the insurance becomes expensive increase your charges.

If you tell parents in advance that you will charge for damaged instruments you are likely to loose your clients. If you don't tell them you cannot charge.

 

[Ozzy]

Claiming is likely to cause your premium to increase but as mentioned above, that is what the insurance is for. Should an accident occur you make the decision to claim or pay out of your own pocket, but nonetheless accidents such as you describe need to be an accepted risk of the nature of your business.

I agree with @Newchodge above, if you are supervising the children then asking parents to be accountable for damages when they are not the ones supervising would be a cause of conflict if you tried to enforce it.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Your base costings need to include insurance and/or damage.

You probably could look at ways of making instruments and equipment a bit more child-resistant.

In reality - as you've surmised - getting parents to pay for anything other than malicious damage would be tricky and could ruin your reputation

 

[Mark James]

Hi Nutter

As others have said don’t get your parents involved as I’m sure their in there 70’s 80’s now and don’t need the hassle.

If it was me I’d just make the place and kit more secure and robust and remind the kids how to treat/respect the place/equipment.

If you get a breakage just absorb the cost yourself. It’s just how it goes.

 

[IanSuth]

Only thing i would add to this is that if you lend pupils instruments to take home for practice, I would make parents liable for some damage caused whilst they have.

My children have all have instrumental lessons -with the youngest when it was via primary school and a local lot called Berkshire Maestros the clarinet she was given was barely workable and we actually sat down and made it work using youtube(keys didnt all work) but there was no liability for damage, when she decided she liked it and we started paying for lessons at a local independent music group she was lent an instrument whilst we looked for one to buy 2nd had, we were told that was a loan of the teachers spare instrument and any damage beyond fair wear and tear of cork pads etc would be chargeable. It was clear how differently she treated the instruments.

If you let the instruments out of your premises with zero liability expect them to be treated as something with no value