Liability and insurance in the swimming school: what you record

Most swim schools operate for years without an accident. Until the moment a child slips on a wet pool edge, a parent calls about a bruise that no one saw happen, or a letter from a lawyer arrives. In that moment one question counts: can you show what happened and why you acted as you did?

This overview is about safety, liability and insurance for small swim schools and independent swim instructors. It stays practical: what you arrange, what you record per lesson and how you stand stronger if a claim arrives.

How liability works in plain language

Drowning is worldwide the fourth cause of death for children aged 1 to 4 years and the third for children aged 5 to 14 years, with about 300,000 deaths per year. Almost a quarter of drowning deaths are children under five, according to the WHO. In the Netherlands roughly eighty people die each year from drowning and about two hundred end up in hospital after a near-drowning, with children aged zero to four at highest risk, according to Royal Life Saving Society UK: water safety. Those figures do not say anything about your school, but they explain why supervision in and around the water weighs so heavily.

Being liable means: you are responsible for the damage. In the Civil Code it concerns article 6:162, the unlawful act, and for premises article 6:174. The core is always the same. Did you create or allow a situation that poses danger, and could you reasonably have taken measures?

Duty of care: prevent what you can foresee

In case law that question keeps coming up. The Supreme Court shaped it in 1965 in the Kelderluik ruling: whoever creates a dangerous situation must estimate how likely an accident is, how serious the consequences can be and how much effort it takes to remove the danger.

For a swim school that means wet floors, busy changing rooms, children walking into deep water and children who cannot yet swim being in places they should not be. Each of these are situations you can do something about.

What a judge looks at

In practice four things matter:

• How predictable was the danger? That young people on a slide do not follow the rules is predictable behavior.
• How likely was it that something would go wrong, and how serious would the damage be?
• Which measures were possible and reasonable? Extra supervision in a busy spot, for example.
• How much effort did it cost to limit that danger?

These are the Kelderluik criteria. They sound legal, but you can use them every week as a checklist: what danger do I see, and what do I do about it?

A real case: the family slide in Nijkerk

The Midden-Nederland court ruled in 2017 about an accident in an outdoor pool. A sixteen-year-old went down the family slide on his knees and hit his head on the bottom. He suffered a spinal cord injury. The slide was three meters wide, started at 2.75 meters high and was 12.7 meters long, with a water depth of about 1.10 meters in the catch basin.

What makes the case relevant for every swim school: the pool had supervision, but from the tower. The court found that insufficient. Precisely because the slide had only been open for a month and appealed to youths who test limits, someone should have stood at the slide itself, preferably on the platform, to address users directly about their sliding behavior. The court finally attributed 75% of the damage to the pool, because part remained for the victim. The file also contained the memo the pool had made for the supervisors, with a line-by-line list of what to watch. Those are exactly the papers you want to have if something happens. The ruling can be read via ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2017:3055.

What if a temp makes a mistake?

As an employer you are in principle liable for what your employees do during work, stated in article 6:170 of the Civil Code. A temp or a colleague taking over a group changes little about where the claim lands, namely at the school. Whether you can recover the amount from the employee depends on the circumstances. Do not count on that.

And the parents?

Parents are liable under article 6:169 of the Civil Code for damage caused by their child under fourteen. Good to know, but it does not reduce your responsibility. You supervise your own lesson, in your part of the pool. If a child suffers damage there, the judge first looks at what you should have done.

Who is responsible for what: pool, school and parents

The rules for the pool itself

The old Hygiene and Safety of Bathing Establishments Act has lapsed. Since 1 January 2024 the rules for public pools and bathing basins are in chapter 15 of the Besluit activiteiten leefomgeving, under the Environment Act. They cover water quality, hygiene and safety, and the province can impose additional rules. The Informatiepunt Leefomgeving summarizes those rules.

Those obligations lie with the party that offers the opportunity to swim and bathe, usually the pool or the operator. If you rent a basin, part of that role may fall to you, for example if you admit visitors yourself. Have that checked in your rental or usage agreement. Also agree who measures water quality, who dries wet floors and who knows the emergency procedure. Ask the pool for the latest measurements and the emergency plan. You prefer to have that conversation beforehand rather than on the day it goes wrong.

Your own lesson

Within your lesson you are responsible for supervision, level allocation, equipment and the behavior you allow. Run through these points:

• Do you know who is in the water? Keeping attendance helps here as well.
• Is the division correct? A child who cannot quite float should not be in the deep end by the diving board.
• Is the equipment intact? Bands, mats, kickboards and steps wear out faster than you think.
• Who intervenes if something happens? A fixed agreement works faster than searching for whoever is closest.

Those who work with children should show it

In swimming the Certificate of Conduct has become commonplace: World Aquatics: swimming sport has required it from 1 September 2020 for all officials within affiliated clubs, valid for three years. For an independent swim school a VOG is not legally required, but it is a small gesture that immediately gives parents confidence. Put in your team overview who has which qualification, from first aid and lifesaving to the instructor diploma, and track when something expires. That is also the overview you need if a temp takes over a group.

What you can expect from parents

Parents drop off and pick up, but at busy times that shifts. Agree where a child waits and who picks them up. Record that you are not responsible for children who stay in the pool before or after the lesson without supervision. Put that in your terms and conditions or your confirmation email and repeat it at intake, so parents know what to expect and you do not have to explain later who was watching.

Insurances: what you arrange and what is not covered

Commercial liability insurance (AVB)

A commercial liability insurance covers damage that you or your employees cause to others or to their property during work, including personal injury. The government is clear about the obligation: it is not legally required, but a client or trade organization can ask for it. That is exactly what it comes down to in practice. If the pool where you rent demands a policy before you may teach, then you need one. See Ondernemersplein and the explanation there.

One misunderstanding recurs among independent instructors: your private liability insurance does not cover damage from business activities. Not even if you operate as a sole proprietor. If you teach besides a job and thought your private package covers this, that is not correct.

Professional liability insurance (BAV)

A professional liability insurance covers mistakes in your work where there is no direct damage to persons or things. Think of an assessment that causes a pupil to progress too early, or incorrect advice about a child. An AVB does not cover that, a BAV can. If you only teach, the need is smaller. If you also give advice, assess children or work with your own learning pathway, it is worth asking what is and is not insured.

Disability and income loss

If you drop out, your lessons stop. Self-employed people do not receive benefits in case of illness or an accident. A disability insurance is not mandatory, but it is the topic independent instructors with an injury most regret. First calculate what you need per month and what you can spare.

Register your activities and check your SBI code

Insurers look at what you actually do. If you give trainings or advice in addition to lessons, or work at multiple locations, report that. If your SBI code does not include swim lessons, an insurer can make things difficult in a claim. At the Chamber of Commerce you can have your activities supplemented.

This table is meant to guide the conversation with your insurer or advisor. It is not legal advice and not insurance advice: your situation may differ. Check that your policy matches what you actually do, from temps to the locations you work at.

What you record, and why that makes the difference

A claim rarely arrives at the moment itself. It comes months later, when no one remembers exactly who was at that lesson. What you recorded then is your only support.

Attendance and cancellations

Who was there, and who was not? A cancellation should show when it was communicated. That is the difference between hearing nothing and being able to point out that the parent cancelled at 8:12 and you handled the lesson according to the terms.

Who taught the lesson and who supervised

Especially with temps and group takeovers this becomes fuzzy. Record per lesson who ran the group and who supervised. In the Nijkerk case the entire discussion was about how supervision at the moment of the accident was organized and who was looking where.

Agreements with parents, black on white

The agreements you record at the start work both ways. Think of pickup, whether a child with an ear infection may join, and what happens on cancellation. Parents know what to expect and you can show that you agreed it.

Incidents: short, factual, with date

Keep a short report of what happened: date, time, who was present, what you did and who you informed. Stick to what you observed. A suspicion, an opinion or a judgment about a colleague does not belong in it, and you can write that down later if needed.

Equipment and environment

Do a fixed round before the lesson: water depth at your working spot, wet floors, sharp edges, working steps and equipment that is not torn. A short five-point checklist you always do is worth more than an extensive protocol no one uses.

How to record it in the Swimmigo app

You do not need a binder full of forms for all these points. The app is built for the teaching practice, and the information you already record while teaching is exactly the information you will need later. More about the instructor environment and the features is on the site.

Groups, levels and attendance

You can see per group who is present, who cancelled and which levels are together. Moving students between groups is possible, with a warning if the level differs, and there is a waiting list and room for catch-up groups. That is the information someone asks for later: why did this child swim in that group, and on which day?

Team roles with their own rights

You work with roles: owner, manager and instructor. A temp sees only what they need, and a manager may for example view administration and turnover. The fewer people who can access everything, the clearer it becomes when you need to reconstruct who did what.

Activity log

The app tracks who did what: moving students, adjusting prices, giving discounts, canceling lessons. That way you can see when something changed, without asking your colleagues.

Messages with read receipt

Messages between you and parents are in the app, with a read receipt. Notifications go automatically in the parent’s language, which matters in multilingual families and schools working with newcomers. If you send a message about a wet floor, a changed schedule or a missed lesson, you can see it was read.

What the app does not do: it is not a legal file and it does not replace your insurance. It mainly helps you quickly and factually show how you had arranged things. Parents use Swimmigo for free. Schools and independent instructors choose a subscription after thirty days free trial: Solo or School, both with unlimited students.

What this means for parents

What you can expect

You do not have to see a policy for registration, but you may want to know how a school handles safety. Ask about supervision, group size, who can give first aid and what happens if your child is injured. A school that is clear about that has usually thought it through. If you want to follow your child’s progress without sitting in the stands every lesson, the parent environment offers that.

Five questions to ask at registration

• How many children are in a group, and how many instructors are in the water?
• Who supervises during the lesson, and does that person have first aid and lifesaving training?
• What happens if my child is sick, injured or has an ear infection?
• How will I be informed if something happened during the lesson?
• Where can I see my child’s progress without being at every lesson?

Conclusion

Safety in a swim school depends less on your policy than on your habits: supervision in the right place, a correct level allocation and agreements on paper. The Nijkerk family slide case shows that the judge looks at what the pool could foresee and which measures were reasonably possible, and that it matters whether you can show how supervision was arranged. Arrange your insurances, record per lesson who was there and who supervised, and repeat your agreements with parents at each new level. That costs a few minutes a week and saves a lot of explanation when it counts.

Sources

• Court Midden-Nederland: ruling about an accident with the family slide (ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2017:3055) - 21 June 2017
• Informatiepunt Leefomgeving: offering the opportunity to swim and bathe (chapter 15 Besluit activiteiten leefomgeving) - consulted September 2026
• Ondernemersplein (Dutch government): commercial liability insurance, what is and is not covered - consulted September 2026
• Wetten.overheid.nl: Civil Code Book 6 (articles 6:162, 6:169, 6:170 and 6:174) - consulted September 2026
• Royal Life Saving Society UK: water safety - consulted September 2026
• WHO: drowning fact sheet - consulted September 2026
• Mijnzzp.nl: which insurances does a swim instructor need as a freelancer? - consulted September 2026
• World Aquatics: swimming sport - consulted September 2026