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Michigan gym insurance conversations almost always start in the same place: the owner points at the membership waiver. It is a reasonable instinct and only a partly correct one. Michigan will enforce a release against an adult member for ordinary negligence — but the leading Michigan case on the subject is a health club treadmill death in which the gym's waiver failed. Knowing why is the difference between a document that ends a case early and a document everyone assumed was doing more than it was.
The short version: A release can bar an adult's ordinary negligence claim in Michigan, but only if it explicitly says the signer is giving up the right to sue — and it never reaches gross negligence, so a plaintiff pleads gross negligence and your carrier still defends. It does not bind a minor at all. And Michigan has a health club statute requiring a trained individual, an AED and an emergency plan — which is where an unstaffed 24-hour model gets complicated.
The waiver, honestly
Michigan's leading case here is directly on point for this industry. In Xu v Gay (2003), a man using a complimentary pass at a fitness center fell from a treadmill — a wall stood two and a half feet behind it — suffered a severe head injury, and died about three weeks later. A liability release appeared at the top of the sign-in sheet he had signed.
The Court of Appeals stated the general rule — a contractual waiver insulates against ordinary negligence but not gross negligence, which Michigan defines as conduct "so reckless as to demonstrate a substantial lack of concern for whether an injury results." But it then held that this gym's language was not effective as a release at all, because it did not inform the reader that he was solely responsible for injuries or that he was waiving the gym's liability by relinquishing his right to sue. The court reinstated the ordinary negligence claim on that basis, and separately affirmed dismissal of the gross negligence count because the record could not meet that threshold.
So the leading Michigan health club waiver case is one where the waiver failed. That is the point for an owner: Michigan will enforce a release against an adult for ordinary negligence, but only if the document explicitly says the signer is giving up the right to sue. A one-line "we assume no responsibility" at the top of a sign-in sheet is exactly what Xu rejected.
Two things follow, and both are worth saying to an owner:
- A waiver's job is to end the ordinary negligence case early and cheaply. It does not end the lawsuit. The plaintiff pleads gross negligence, and your carrier still has to defend. Defense cost is the real number, and it is why a waiver is not a substitute for limits.
- "Properly drafted" is doing real work in that sentence. Michigan cases turn on the specific language, its conspicuousness and its scope. Drafting a release is the practice of law — get it reviewed by a Michigan attorney. We are not going to tell you your waiver is adequate, and neither should anyone else selling you a policy.
A parent cannot waive a child's claim in Michigan
This is the fact most gym owners have never been told, and it matters the moment you run a kids' club, a youth program, or a childwatch room.
In Woodman v Kera LLC (2010), a minor was injured at an indoor inflatable-play facility after his father signed a pre-injury release. A majority of the Michigan Supreme Court held that a parent cannot bind a minor child to a pre-injury liability waiver. The lead opinion reasoned that absent special circumstances a parent has no authority to bind a child by contract, and declined to change the common-law rule; the dissent's complaint that the decision would increase litigation and reduce recreational opportunities is itself the clearest evidence the result commanded a majority.
Michigan's Legislature has not overridden that decision. Note that Woodman is a fractured opinion — a majority agreed on the outcome, not on a single opinion's full reasoning — so the accurate statement is that a majority of the Court so held, not that the Court was unanimous.
The commercial translation: for members under 18, the document you rely on most does not do the thing you believe it does. It may bar the parent's own derivative claims. It does not bar the child's. For minors, insurance is not a supplement to the waiver. It is the defense. If your facility runs youth programming, our post on Michigan youth sports facility insurance covers the abuse and molestation and concussion exposures that come with it.
Michigan has a health club statute, and it has teeth in an unexpected way
Michigan's Medical Emergencies in Health Clubs act (2006 PA 23, MCL 333.26311–333.26314) applies to an establishment whose primary purpose is providing services or facilities to assist patrons with physical exercise, weight control or figure development — including a fitness center, studio, salon or club — and excludes hotels and motels offering fitness equipment, organizations providing training or facilities exclusively for individual sports, and weight reduction centers.
It requires a health club owner or operator to do three things:
- Employ at least one individual who has satisfactorily completed a course in basic first aid, CPR and AED use through an approved organization;
- Have an AED on the premises, deployed in a manner providing obvious and ready accessibility to staff, members and guests; and
- Develop and implement an emergency plan to address emergency services, when needed, during operational hours.
The act also provides that a person, including a health club owner, operator or employee, does not have a duty to render emergency service using an AED. Violation is a state civil infraction — not more than $250 for a first offense, up to $500 for a second, up to $1,000 for subsequent.
Here is the part that matters, and it is not the fine. $250 is trivial. The reason to comply is that the statute establishes a standard of care, and the plaintiff's lawyer in a cardiac-arrest case will read it to the jury. We are not telling you non-compliance is negligence per se — that is a legal conclusion and Michigan's doctrine there is nuanced. We are telling you a plaintiff will point to it, and underwriters know that.
What Michigan does not have
You will find national gym-insurance content referring to a Michigan health spa act with bond or escrow requirements for prepaid memberships. There is no Michigan health club, health spa or fitness center act. Michigan has no health-club membership-contract statute, no statutory cancellation right, and no prepaid-membership bond or escrow requirement. Many states have one; Michigan is not among them. Health club complaints are handled under the general Michigan Consumer Protection Act, and the Attorney General's own consumer alert cites no health-club statute — it tells consumers to read the contract.
That absence is itself an exposure. Because there is no statutory escrow, a gym that sells prepaid or lifetime memberships and then closes leaves members unsecured — a reputational and management-liability problem rather than a property or liability one. As the AG's alert puts it, a "lifetime" membership is only good for the lifetime of the business.
The exclusion that decides whether training is covered
Here is a nuance that surprises most owners and many agents. The standard unendorsed liability form contains no professional services exclusion. Professional-services exclusions are added by endorsement — the standard one is CG 21 16, Exclusion — Designated Professional Services, and many carriers use proprietary athletic or fitness-instruction versions instead.
This exactly parallels the assault and battery situation, and the parallel is worth making explicit: the exclusion that guts a gym's coverage for training instruction usually is not in the base form — it is stapled on. Two policies with identical declarations pages can differ completely on whether a personal-training injury is covered. That difference lives in the endorsement schedule.
If you employ or contract trainers, check three things: whether a professional services or instruction exclusion is attached, whether independent-contractor trainers are insureds under your policy or are expected to carry their own, and whether you require and collect certificates from them. That last one is also a workers' comp question — under MCL 418.171 a principal can be made to pay comp for an uninsured contractor's injured worker, and a 1099 does not settle the classification. See 1099 subcontractors and Michigan workers' comp.
Why unstaffed 24-hour access is a different risk
We write staffed gyms and studios. Unstaffed 24-hour-access facilities are a materially different underwriting proposition, and it is worth being direct about why rather than pretending it is a preference.
Start with Michigan's own statute. The health club act requires you to employ a trained individual and to have an emergency plan covering operational hours. When your operational hours include hours with nobody on site, that requirement gets hard to satisfy in practice — the AED is on the wall and the person the statute requires to be trained in using it is at home. Whether that violates the act is a legal question we are not resolving. The tension is real, it is Michigan-specific, and it is one reason underwriters price and sometimes decline unstaffed access.
Carrier loss-control material on unstaffed 24-hour fitness facilities identifies a consistent list: vandalism and unmonitored incidents; unauthorized access with no way to verify who entered; unsecured equipment and areas that cannot be closed off, including pools, spas and locker rooms; minors accessing the facility without supervision; slip, trip and fall hazards with nobody monitoring; emergency-response gaps and members' ability to reach emergency services; member misconduct with no witness; and services like snow removal not provided during unstaffed hours.
The one to think hardest about in a Michigan winter: a key fob proves that a fob entered, not that a member did. Fob sharing means a non-member — an ex-partner, a stranger, a minor — can be in your building alone with a member at three in the morning, and you have no staff, no witness and a negligent-security claim. One piece of good news there: an unendorsed liability policy is more likely to respond to a negligent-security claim as an occurrence — though that is a coverage question turning on the pleading and the form — and the assault and battery exclusions that would take it away are added by endorsement. As of January 1, 2026 there is now a standard ISO assault or battery exclusion whose third prong reaches negligent hiring, supervision, monitoring and failure to report. Check whether one is on your policy.
How Michigan classifies gyms for workers' comp
Michigan's own manual is unusually broad here, which works in your favor. Code 9063 covers health and exercise clubs, gyms, YMCAs and similar institutions, and the manual states that facilities may provide classes or instruction, recreation and educational programs, and activities including swimming, sports clinics, self-defense or martial arts, table games, dance and arts and crafts — and that all of these activities are included in Code 9063. Michigan does not split martial arts, swim instruction or dance out into separate codes the way you might expect.
Adjacent splits the manual does make: food service to 9058, janitorial and your own building and grounds to 9015, transportation to 7380 and vehicle maintenance to 8395. Indoor tennis, racquetball and handball facilities that provide courts for those sports only sit in 9065 instead. Michigan is not an NCCI state, so verify against Michigan's manual — see Michigan workers' comp class codes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are gym liability waivers enforceable in Michigan?
A release that is explicit about what the signer is giving up can bar an adult's ordinary negligence claim. But Michigan's leading case, Xu v Gay, arose from a fitness center treadmill death and held that gym's release ineffective, because the language never told the reader he was relinquishing the right to sue. Waivers never shield a defendant from gross negligence, defined in Michigan as conduct so reckless as to demonstrate a substantial lack of concern for whether an injury results. In practice a plaintiff pleads gross negligence, so even a good waiver ends the ordinary claim rather than the lawsuit.
Can a parent sign away a child's right to sue my gym?
No. In Woodman v Kera LLC (2010), a majority of the Michigan Supreme Court held that a parent cannot bind a minor child to a pre-injury liability waiver, and the Legislature has not overridden that decision. A parent-signed release may bar the parent's own derivative claims, but it does not bar the child's. Any facility with youth programming should treat insurance limits, not the waiver file, as the defense for those members.
Does Michigan require gyms to have an AED?
Yes. Michigan's Medical Emergencies in Health Clubs act requires a health club to employ at least one individual trained in basic first aid, CPR and AED use, to have an AED on the premises deployed with obvious and ready accessibility, and to develop and implement an emergency plan for operational hours. Violation is a civil infraction with a first-offense penalty of not more than $250. The practical significance is not the fine — it is that the statute frames the standard of care a plaintiff will argue.
Does Michigan require a bond for prepaid gym memberships?
No. There is no Michigan health club or health spa act, no statutory cancellation right, and no prepaid-membership bond or escrow requirement, despite national content that assumes otherwise because many states have such a law. Complaints are handled under the general Michigan Consumer Protection Act. Because there is no escrow requirement, members of a gym that closes are unsecured creditors.
Is personal training covered by my general liability policy?
It depends on your endorsements, not on the base form. The standard unendorsed liability form contains no professional services exclusion — those are added by endorsement, including a standard designated professional services exclusion and various proprietary fitness-instruction versions. Two policies with identical declarations pages can reach opposite answers on a training injury. Check the endorsement schedule, and confirm whether contract trainers are insureds or are expected to carry their own coverage.
The bottom line
A gym program comes down to three checks: whether a professional services or instruction exclusion is attached, whether an assault and battery exclusion is attached, and whether your limits are sized for the claims your waiver cannot stop — gross negligence pleadings and anything involving a member under 18. The waiver file matters. It is not the program.
We work best with established, staffed Michigan gyms, studios and health clubs — employees or contracted instructors on the books, a real lease or building, documented emergency procedures, and a few years of loss runs. Unstaffed 24-hour-access facilities are a different market and usually a different conversation. If you are the former, send us your current declarations pages, your full schedule of forms, your waiver and your last two loss runs. We will tell you which exclusions are actually on your policy before we talk about price. Call (248) 693-6455 or request a review.