Black Belt Banter: Martial Arts Business Podcast

#14 | What's the BEST Way to Protect Students and Schools from Worst Case Scenarios?

• Jimmy Hong • Season 1 • Episode 14

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Our most important Podcast yet...

In this week's episode of Black Belt Banter, hosts Master Jimmy Hong and Master Chan dive into the critical risks facing martial arts school owners and the importance of specialized insurance coverage. They're joined by Mrs. Beth Block from Block Insurance, who brings over 30 years of expertise in protecting martial arts schools, childcare centers, and private and charter schools. The episode covers the essential policies to keep children safe, the rule of three, social media guidelines, and the importance of defensive insurance coverage. Tune in to learn how to safeguard your martial arts school and protect your students, staff, and reputation.

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Speaker 1:

In this week's episode, we tackle the critical risks facing martial arts school owners and why securing specialized insurance coverage can't wait another day. Welcome to Black Belt Banter the best podcast to help your martial arts school increase in profits and generate substantial revenue. I'm Jimmy Hong and my co-host is Master Chonley. Today we're joined by Mrs Beth Block, a true veteran in the world of specialized insurance. For over 30 years, beth and her team at Block Insurance has been protecting martial arts schools, child care centers and private and charter schools across the United States. She's built her reputation on deep industry expertise, clear communication and charter schools across the United States. She's built her reputation on deep industry expertise, clear communication and a commitment to making sure business owners understand exactly how to safeguard what they've worked so hard to build. In this episode, mrs Beth shares her insight on the unique risks martial arts school owners face and why having specialized coverage isn't just smart, it's essential. Mrs Block, master Chun-Li, welcome to the show. It's a critically important show.

Speaker 2:

Master Lee, I'm going to just hand it over to you, I think this is one of the most important podcasts we've ever done and I'm so happy that we have Mrs Beth Block here.

Speaker 2:

I want to talk about something that is probably not the most pleasant thing to talk about, and it's essentially this we all work with kids and since we work with kids, there is a unique risk to working with children, and there's a thing that we need to do as leaders in the martial art industry is that we have to keep the children safe, and because we work with kids, we're going to naturally attract people that like to do harm with kids and it's not a pleasant idea and it's one of these things. We have to have the right policies and the procedures in doing that, and it's not just for the martial art industry, it's for anything like USA Gymnastics had a huge issue with underage kids. Usa Swimming soccer, the Catholic Church you know to be blind to the fact that us as martial arts school owners, that we are blind or ignorant about the possibility of this possibly happening in our own organizations, is asinine. It's important that we have the right policies and procedures for our students and keeping them safe. So without I know I hit hard a little bit in the beginning and everybody's delete. I'm done listening, but you know what are some things that martial arts schools should have. Mrs Block for something that should keep the kids safe and policies within their schools.

Speaker 3:

There is a whole host of answers to that're not inside the studio. That means you need policies and procedures in place that make it completely clear, place that make it completely clear. There are no relationships of any sort outside the dojang with a student, ideally with any student, but absolutely any student under the age of 18.

Speaker 1:

And that's a great. That's a great point, mrs Block'm sure Master Chan-Li can attest to this is making sure not just your staff but your leadership team, all of that they have no social media connections. Invite of these kids to their own personal account. Make sure that is that correct, mrs Block.

Speaker 3:

That is absolutely correct. Your leadership team becomes an issue because frequently those teenagers have relationships with teen students inside school, and so you need to develop policies that address that as well, because inside your studio the leadership team has a position of authority that you cannot afford to have carry over into their relationship in school.

Speaker 1:

And that's another strong point, and we forget this. As business owners, they do have position of authority, position of power, because these students look up to these black belts and leaders and we empower them. And I'm not just talking about your head instructor, I'm talking about how you're training your leadership team, from teenagers on, even to adults. They're part of the leadership team and we forget that the rest of the school we empower the leadership team as the master instructor and we forget that the rest of school sees them as an authority figure as well, and that's one of the part that the point that you're making Absolutely, mrs Block authority figure as well, and that's one of the part that the point that you're making absolutely, mrs Block.

Speaker 2:

So making sure having a policy the communication policy, I think is very important that they're not allowed to contact students from their devices to talk to them or have a social communications with them, and it's one of these things you've got to be stern on, because the only reason they met that student is through your organization. So you have to be in control of that and controlling of all that data that they're not allowed to like give out phone numbers to other people or connect with them. They can connect to them through if you have a group meet among the staff. That's one of the channels that we use if they want to talk amongst the staff. But having, you know, a 19-year-old staff member contact a 15-year-old staff member via a personal text is a huge no-no. It's one of those things that you should say that it's not allowed to do. It's one of these things that you want to make sure that they are understanding. That is one of the cardinal sins of your, of within your organization. That's something that's something that shouldn't happen.

Speaker 3:

It needs to be grounds for immediate termination. You need to have policies and procedures that your entire staff knows. If they cross one of these lines, they are immediately terminated, and this needs to be one of those lines. Right?

Speaker 1:

Mrs Block, so I don't know if you're aware, a lot of the school owners they create a leadership team to groom or train potential as potential staff members. As they get rising ranks and learn more experience, do they need to be informed in policies, just like how you would train a staff member and do that right away, or do you wait until they become staff members? What is your take?

Speaker 3:

Right away Because again you've put them in a position of authority. The rest of the students look up to them. They have that power position. They need to be trained immediately on the responsibilities that go along with that.

Speaker 1:

What are some of the examples that you feel that's going to be important that we lay out immediately and consistently thereafter?

Speaker 3:

So I'm not going to focus just on your leadership team At this point. It applies to everyone. Leadership, whether they're a teenager or an adult. Everyone needs to understand that they are a professional. They are somebody that the lower ranks are looking up to and, as a result, their relationship can be professionally friendly, but not friends, and that's a very important distinction. You want instructors that are going to have a good working relationship, that students are going to look up to, but it's not 1970 anymore. It's really not okay to go have dinner on the weekend with the family of one of your students. That just doesn't fly in America.

Speaker 3:

Learning where those lines are learning that if you have a picture of a child that is unrelated to you on your phone, you can end up going to prison for having done that, and so making sure people know their personal devices are not to be used for taking pictures. They're not to be used for communication. You're using solely the studio's communication channels and devices. People need to know that they are responsible for a standard of conduct outside the studio as well as inside, because your outside behavior impacts somebody's view of the studio. If you have, on your social media personal feed, opened everybody a picture where you're half dressed and half drunk. That impacts people's view of you. You need to be aware of appropriate touch and you need to have specific policies and procedures on what's appropriate touch and what isn't appropriate. If you leave me to, I'll keep. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2:

I just want to talk about like social media real quick, and what we've done in our own organization is that they my instructors ask me we can't friend our students. I'm like, no, you can't unless you have a separate instructor page and it's only martial arts students, right? You shouldn't have a another page for your personal page. And then that was a policy that we made within our own organization is that you have a professional page and then you have a private page. And here's the law of unintended consequences. We have people that are on the left and we have people on the right and, especially with the last few elections, some of our senior instructors had really strong opinions one way or the other and I said, if you guys blast that, you're going to lose 50% of your credibility to our students and then you're going to be useless to us as an organization. So you need to make sure that you have a professional page, that you do not talk about your personal stuff, and it's important that when you're friending, you cannot friend anybody under the age of 18. Or if they friend you, you can't do that under the age of 18. But I highly, highly discourage that they don't engage, right and that you don't do that and it's an important part of them developing that because you're going to lose credibility.

Speaker 2:

And in terms of the friend, this is the biggest. I know this is the biggest issue in every martial arts school Be friendly, but don't be a friend. And we want you to be friendly to your students, having them over at your house or you coming and going to their house and I know in your mind you're like I can do that. Let's take that one step further. Are you comfortable with your instructors going to your students' house? If that answer is no, then you shouldn't be doing it either, and it shouldn't happen because of the fact that you know you being the owner of the school or them being agents of the school. They represent your academy and if something happens, that puts you in liability.

Speaker 3:

Even if you're comfortable with them going. Even if nothing ever happens, the door is open to accusations and all it takes is an accusation to potentially take away everything you've worked for and wipe out all the good you've done in your community. Why would you open the door to an accusation?

Speaker 3:

I'm going to back the truck up and talk about you telling your instructors they can have professional instructor pages If they set those up themselves. You have no access that they don't give you. You don't know who they're private messaging with. You don't know what they're saying. I'm sorry. You've got to say no to private instructor pages. You need to have control. If you want a school sponsored page for every instructor, that's great, but you have the control over it.

Speaker 2:

Then it should just be that's the bottom line, because I don't want to create more work. Is you shouldn't just? You shouldn't friend your students?

Speaker 1:

period exactly so. It's okay to have a public school page where all your staff and instructors are there and everybody can see as a public, but just making sure that there's no private communications, even on a official school page, is what you're saying exactly and yeah it makes

Speaker 2:

perfect sense. I, you know. I know of a incident that happened at a school where two teen instructors I think one was like 15 and one was 17 and whatever, and male, female and I believe the 17-year-old asked the 15-year-old if you show me yours, I'll show you yours or mine, and sent a text of a naked picture of himself. And then the other staff member did not do it, just thought it was funny that she could bait someone to do it, and then proceeded to show the other staff members that were also underage. And then that school ended up having an incident where there were other kids now that was considered child pornography, that they were exposed to child porn, and it delved into this huge issue and both kids could have gotten in incredible trouble because of the fact that, you know, even though they were minors, they were distributing child porn. That was the law they were breaking, and so the school owner dealt with it, dealt with all the parents. It came to a peaceful resolution. Both kids were let go in the organization and now they learned a valuable lesson. And so I know we say it's kids being kids and whatever, but you just don't know. And even though instructor had nothing to do with it, it became this like contentious issue. So once again it goes back to training and policies and making sure that, hey, the only way you can communicate with one another is through your, you know, slack or GroupMe or whatever channel you created, and that they shouldn't be texting each other personally through other channels and things like that, because it just opens up another wall of liability as you're trying to mitigate, kind of what is proper and what's improper. And I'm not saying that you have bad people, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is you have to have policies to keep them safe, right, because you may get one bad apple that ruins it for everybody, and so you're just making sure that you keep that in place with going on. Another policy that I believe is super important is the rule of three, oh, that you always have a third person in the room because you just don't know what can be accused.

Speaker 2:

I had a school owner that was accused of having a possible affair with a mom and apparently the mom was having fantasies about the instructor, but there was no interaction. Having fantasies about the instructor, but there was no interaction. And the school has cameras. Everything was recorded. There was nothing that was inappropriate and essentially it was a person that was a little bit off kilter and the husband was upset. It was just a hot mess. But because he had backed it up and followed the rule of three and this, like I said, the school owner did nothing wrong. It was just the fact that you had someone that was emotionally off or disturbed, that that started having fantasies about the instructor and then the husband accused everybody of things like that. It's crazy. I'm sure you've heard a lot of crazy stories that have gone on. I can't even imagine some of the stories that you've heard over the years.

Speaker 3:

A lot of stories and I'll share one or two with you in a minute. I want to talk about the rule of three. Where I train, adult class is always the last we finish at about nine o'clock at none, and you have teenagers in the class that are too young to drive, but the parents aren't waiting and after class everybody chats a little bit and heads out the door. I will always linger because sometimes mom or dad is late getting there to pick up that teen that can't drive, and I will not ever leave my instructor alone in the studio with someone under the age of 18. 18, I highly recommend that everyone put in place a practice or a procedure to make sure their instructors don't end up in that bad position. Whether it's finding an adult student that's there that you can ask to hang out, like I do, whatever it is, that's the solution for the individual studio. You need to have a plan and you need to practice that plan 100%.

Speaker 1:

I know from Master Chalene and myself. We've been in the industry so long. We've heard worst-case scenarios not only once but multiple times throughout the years, and that's from our network of people not our friends, but who we known about or known of, and that's not including news that we've caught the wind of. I know I've said this many times my 12-year-old boy is in soccer and there was just an incident a few months ago in our local region that all the coaches know who was accused of that, of the worst-case scenario with a child, and it was such a big headline. But it's not just within the martial arts industry. This is every industry that involves youth sports or sports youth.

Speaker 3:

Every industry I serve involves youth and I've been working with industries that serve youth for 38 years now, holy moly, and over that course of 38 years, I have seen hundreds of broken bones and other physical injuries. Unfortunately, I've seen more than 100 cases of abuse and molestation. That's a lot. Yes, sir, yes sir. My mission is to keep that number as low as I possibly can, and if anybody walks away from this podcast inspired to put new policies and procedures in place, maybe I've saved another child.

Speaker 2:

And, once again, if you're working with kids, you're going to naturally attract individuals that want to do harm to children, and it is your job as an instructor and as a person that works with children and having the right policies and procedures that keeps the kids safe, and I can't stress to you enough that it's critical. The rule of three is one of the biggest things that you can do. I know one more terrible story and, just to give everybody an idea, I went through a training called Kid Safe and I did it with the local police department and I took our instructors to go. And I did it with the local police department and I took our instructors to go, and the presenter was talking about how a teacher that she worked with was accused of something inappropriate with a 12-year-old and detectives were called. He was dismissed.

Speaker 2:

All these things happened and after a year and a half battle, his reputation was drugged through the mud. He got fired, he had to go to a different industry. He was a school teacher and the kid, after a year and a half, finally cracked and said yeah, I accused my teacher of inappropriate relations because of the fact that he wouldn't let me go on a field trip because I didn't hand in my homework, and so there's two sides of this coin I'm talking about is that we also got to protect you. You can't just be like, ah, you know what, I'm a good guy. That can't happen to me.

Speaker 2:

I have cameras in all my schools that record all the conversations in the cameras in the offices and everywhere, record all the conversations in the cameras in the offices and everywhere. And so and we every year, every January, we go over our safety protocols and procedures with all our staff and what we ask of them, and it's super important that you do the same After this podcast. If you guys want to send Master Jimmy Hong an email, I'll be happy to give you my safety policies and so forth. I'm with you, mrs Block. I want to keep our industry safe, I want to keep the instructors safe and, more importantly, I want to keep the kids safe. And, like I said, we're not accusing you of anything. It's just the fact that you have to have policies for everybody that is within your organization in terms of making sure that nothing bad happens. So I want to talk about the next steps.

Speaker 1:

I'm sorry. Before we go to the next step, mrs Block, do you have policies and documentations you can share with the school owners available?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

First of all.

Speaker 2:

I'm offended that you have been have to ask that because you're talking to the amazing Beth Block. She doesn't have what it's like a manual man. It's like it's the playbook that you should just keep your mouth shut when you like. Do these things. You know what I'm saying? It's just ridiculous.

Speaker 1:

I should keep my mouth shut on a podcast. I will, we will. We will include your contact information on our show notes below or below our video and YouTube description box. So please, the audience and listeners, look for that below for Mrs Block's contact information. Contact her for your insurance and she'll gladly forward you the policies that we're talking about right now. I'm sorry, Mrs Block, Go ahead.

Speaker 3:

We'll forward them, even if you don't talk to me about your insurance, I'll ask you about your insurance, but I'll forward the policies and procedures either way. Can I tell one more story that I think is really important? And thank you so much for talking about the teacher whose life was ruined because there was a kid that was upset, and that happens all the time. I also have to say three years ago I think it was three or four years ago I got shocked down to my toenails, which is hard to do with everything I've seen over the years. It was a case in a martial arts studio that there truly was an adult molesting a child, a 19-year-old and a 14-year-old. It was the first time I ever saw a female be the molester, and I think that there is I know there was for me. I think there is at large the belief that it's only the males that you have to worry about being the molesters. For decades that was true. It is not now.

Speaker 1:

I see news all the time now about these teachers in middle school and high school that are female teachers molesting underage boys. So to your testament, I don't know if we were just ignorant back then or it's always happened or it's happening more frequently now, but I've noticed in the news cycle that's pretty prevalent as well and that's something that we need to really consider.

Speaker 3:

It has ramped up a lot over the last decade.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think you make a great point. I think it's not just to be male female.

Speaker 3:

Female male.

Speaker 2:

It could be any of that. At the end of the day, I think a hint of paranoia in the world of safety is completely okay, all right, and I think that's okay. To be ignorant and unaware and having this idea that it couldn't happen to me is reckless. It really is and I just like I said, I know this is not a very pleasant podcast to be a part of, but I think it's an important message that all people need to understand, because we have to have the proper policies and procedures to make sure that we follow and, like I said, if it can happen to the Boy Scouts of America and USA Gymnastics, right, then it can happen at our schools. So we've got to make sure we do that. So I want to ask you to the next question is what does most policies in the martial art industry? They have coverage for the victims and they have coverage to also keep the school safe. How does that work? Can you just give us a rough kind of idea of what that is like?

Speaker 3:

safe or how does that work? Can you just give us a rough kind of idea of what that is like? Absolutely. There is a variety of coverage offered and so I'm going to start with in my. I work with about 575 martial arts studios across America and of that group, half of them do not have any abuse coverage because they don't want to pay for it. So just in my little subset, half of the studios are uninsured period no-transcript Of the half that have coverage, depending on the company they're with is how much coverage they have.

Speaker 3:

Some companies, some insurance companies, include the defense, the legal defense, in the limit. It's included in the $100,000 limit. It's included in the $100,000 limit. I have a client right now who spent years being defended quarter of a million dollars in defense. That would have been exhausted and they would have been on their own. There's a company I represent that offers million-dollar limits and the defense is part of that million bucks. But at that, even with a quarter of a million in defense, there would have been $7.50 left to pay a judgment. If there had been a judgment, if something had really happened, the insurance company would be inking the check from the get-go.

Speaker 3:

The company that offers the million bucks is the most expensive company out there for everything, including abuse. The third company I represent offers a hundred grand of coverage but unlimited defense of coverage, but unlimited defense. In my opinion, the defense is the most vital part of an abuse coverage because if you're putting all these policies and procedures in place, if people have adequate training and they can prove all of that, they do the background checks and have those in file, then they aren't negligent. What they really need is the defense. So it's all over the place in the industry on what the coverage is and there's a whole lot of people in the martial arts industry that believe all insurance coverage is the same, whether we're talking about abuse or anything else, and the bottom line is it's not all the same. If you don't take the time and don't have somebody educate you on the differences, you find out when it's too late, when something's happened.

Speaker 1:

That's fascinating that your recommendation is making sure that your policy covers your defense costs, because those lawyer fees, I mean that's, and these things could go for years. I know a school owner who's been doing it since, who's been defending his name since before start of COVID that's five years ago and it's so, talking with them, the defense cost is so big that I don't know how he did it. I still don't know how he did it. But that's fascinating that your recommendation is the defense cost over the insurance cost.

Speaker 2:

This is when the stuff hits the fan. Then you start looking at it. But you got to be proactive.

Speaker 2:

My house got flooded nine years ago and I went, oh yeah, I'm sure we have flood insurance, whatever. And the adjuster calls me and goes where did the water come from? I'm like what? Did it come through the window or in the basement window or whatever? I said no, it came through our sump pump field. And he goes oh, you don't have sump pump insurance. I go, no, it still got flooded. No, but the water, what?

Speaker 2:

That was like a $30,000 issue. I had to pay $30,000 to redo my basement and I just sat there. If I just would have paid an extra like 75 bucks a month, this would all have been covered or whatever. Or get a battery operated backup, whatever. But that's a terrible example. But it's one of those things. You got to look at your stuff. And two things here preventative have the right policies and procedures, keep the kids safe, keep your instructors safe, keep you safe, keep your assets safe, keep your students safe, keep all the children safe. That's like the biggest thing. And the second thing is review your coverage and so forth. Mrs Block, I just want to thank you for coming on this podcast. If you don't mind coming on again and maybe talking about some training that every school owner could do, that you were talking about before, would you be willing to do that, ma'am?

Speaker 1:

I would love to, and I'll have a set of headphones next time, oh, but also even before that, you're going to be joining us at the ASA Summit this next month in October 3rd and 4th, and everybody, audience, everybody please go to Mrs Block, discuss this. If you have more questions on this or any other questions regarding protecting your business and school, let's call it a day there. I know that was a heavy subject, but we just felt it was so important to discuss there. I know that was a heavy subject, but we just felt it was so important to discuss. A big thank you to Mrs Beth Block from Block Insurance for stepping onto the mat with us today. Remember, in martial arts we train to protect ourselves, but school owners need to protect their students, families themselves and their reputation too. This is Black Belt Banter signing off and we look forward to talking with you next time. Thank you, mrs block. Master chonley, a big thank you as well. We'll see everybody next time.