How Much is Axe Throwing Insurance?

Axe throwing insurance is relatively inexpensive.

Just be careful of paying for the insurance from the guys who take the biggest ads! They are normally not your best deal!

Axe Throwing Insurance can vary, but it is probably cheaper than you think. Based on exposure, which translates to the revenue and number of players you have, a good working number for your planning is about 75 cents per axe thrower.

The first thought is probably, axe insurance must cost a lot! And especially if you are going to have alcohol and axe throwing. But I own 3 paintball fields, and 3 axe throwing facilities, and was amazed that is was less per person for axe throwing than it was for paintball! Then an agent explained it to me.

If you own a paintball field, what is the injury that might occur? Some kid in the lobby doesn’t have his safety on, takes off his barrel sock, then accidentally hits the trigger and a paintball flies across the lobby and hits a mom waiting for her kids in the eye and blinds her in that eye.

If you have an axe facility, about the worst thing that can happen is someone drops an axe and they are wearing flip flops, the blade hits a toe and chops off a toe. So if given the choice right now, would you rather lose an eye? Or a Toe?

But beyond that, it’s not just how bad the injury is… whether or not your axe insurance comes in to play comes down to whose fault is it. Why did I let a kid with a live gun in the lobby take off his barrel sock? But for the axe accident, unless I’m coating the handles of the axes with bacon grease, it’s probably not my fault they dropped it!

To sue someone for your injury, you must show it was their fault, either wholly or partially (varies with laws state to state).

Most all your axe throwing injuries are self induced. Someone drops an axe on a toe. Someone is waiving it around and hits themself in the calf while wearing shorts and needs a few stitches. Someone goes to take out the axe from the board and instead of wiggling the handle out, they stand in front of the axe and just pull and hit themselves in the head ala Three Stooges.

It’s not like people turn around and start hacking up the spectators, and if they did, that’s a homicide not an axe accident for axe throwing liability insurance.

I’ve asked my insurance agent, and polled other axe facilities on Axe Facility Owners Groups on Facebook, and have not had one report of a major accident. Now, will it happen in time? Check out our video on the Stop Axe Bounce Back page, and you can see it could happen if you don’t take the right steps. But so far, it’s a pretty darn safe activity!

So if you want to mitigate potential axe insurance claims, think of what happens and make sure injuries are not your fault.

Splinters

Believe it or not, splinters is the number one axe injury. Splinters can come from one of two places; the target, the axe handle. If you are using our End Grain Target Systems, you will have virtually no splinters. End Grain Targets don’t splinter like normal wood slat targets. I can go up to any of my targets, close my eyes and rub my hands all over it. Would you do that on a slat board target?

The other place someone might pick up a splinter is from the axe itself. Make sure your axe masters inspect the axes before each group. We recommend just one axe in each lane, which then makes it a quick procedure to check for cracks or splinters. If there is a problem with an axe, and you don’t pull it out of service – not you can see that is a situation where one could argue some of the blame falls on you.

Over Sharp Axes

The other huge advantage of End Grain Targets is axes don’t really have to be sharp at all to easily stick. If you have an employee that sharpens an axe to razor sharpness and someone cuts them selves, could that be a case where you are at fault? If the customer has seen axes a lot in their life, used the to chop wood, other axe facilities, but yours are way sharper than the norm, the attorney may have an opening for a suit.

With our targets, we never have to sharpen axes – saves labor, saves time, makes things safer, and less likely to have an axe insurance claim.

There are variations for price depending on your business… what ages do you allow, do you serve alcohol? Have BYOB? What is your total volume of business (more business should be a drop per person in premium) But in the end, you should be somewhere between 50 cents and 75 cents per person. Lets assume you have a small axe place, will see about 200 people a week. Charge them $25 to throw, so about 10,000 people a year and $250,000 in total revenue. That axe throwing insurance policy should probably be about $5,000 – $7,500 for the year.. depending on the other factors outlined.

We actually know an insurance company that will give you discounts for using our systems! So if you are becoming an Axcitement Customer, don’t forget to ask for a referral that might save you thousands. As an example I had one of the self proclaimed experts in the industry quote me, and for the same dollar policy, their price was over 3X the rate I paid with another. $7400 for one location instead of $7200 for 3 locations!