Do Professional Dancers Have Medical Insurance?

Abstract

A variety of dance companies were surveyed to document the medical insurance coverage they provide for their dancers. Various dance and theater arts directories available in San Francisco, California, yielded approximately 100 dance companies, ranging from traditional ballet through many ethnic, folk, eclectic, and modern dance forms. Twenty-eight dance companies provided information about their dancers and medical insurance status. The dancers were not contacted directly so no information about outside sources of medical insurance is available. A total of 292 dancers were listed by the 28 companies. Most were ages 21 to 30 (152, 58.7%) and 31 to 40 (64, 24.7%) years. Just over half (157, 53.8%) of the dancers were covered by Workers Compensation (WC) insurance, while slightly less than half (124, 42.5%) were in companies that offered to contribute to a private insurance plan. A expected, dancers in smaller companies were less likely to have medical insurance. If the two large, professional companies are excluded, out of 187 dancers in the remaining 26 companies, only 52 (27.8%) had WC insurance and only 19 (10.2%) had private insurance at least partially provided by their companies. Only 13.5% of the dancers in companies dancing less than half-time in season had WC insurance, and none had even partial support for private insurance. It is clear that dancers performing in small companies and those performing on a part-time basis rarely have medical insurance provided even in part by their dance companies. Some may have had medical insurance provided by outside sources, but this information was not available from our data collection method.