Introducing the BMABA Event Hub and Event Centre: Free, Unlimited Event Cover Is Now Live

Hi there,

If you run a martial arts club and you have ever winced at the cost of insuring a competition, today is worth reading. Two new platforms are now live inside MyBMABA, and together they include something we think the sector has needed for a long time: free, unlimited event cover for qualifying clubs, built into your membership and activated entirely online.

What Has Launched

The Event Hub and the Event Centre are two distinct but closely connected tools, both accessible from your MyBMABA dashboard.

The Event Hub is where your events live. It is a full event management platform built specifically for martial arts clubs, with tools for financial modelling, participant and fighter management, file sharing, rulebook storage, collaboration with co-organisers and officials, and the compliance checklist that activates your event insurance licence. Everything you need to plan, run, and document a properly governed martial arts event is in one place.

The Event Centre is the knowledge base that sits alongside it. It brings together guides, best practice frameworks, governance documentation, safety resources, and step-by-step support to help you run events to the standard your participants deserve and your insurer requires. If you have never run a competition before, start here. If you have been running events for years, there is still plenty here to strengthen what you already do.

Both platforms are free to access for all active BMABA members.

The Big News: Free, Unlimited Event Cover

If you hold active instructor insurance through BMABA, event public liability cover is now included in your membership at no additional per-event charge. Free. Unlimited. For every sanctioned event you run throughout your membership year.

To put that in context, comparable standalone event cover across the sector has historically cost anywhere from £139.99 to £249.99 per event depending on contact level and the limit of indemnity required. For a club running three or four events a year, that cost adds up quickly. For qualifying members, it is now gone.

Cover is underwritten by AXA XL via Lloyd's, the same underwriter behind your instructor and student insurance. This is not a compromise product. It is serious, regulated cover managed in-house by our team, with full contact and multi-day competitions included as standard.

How It Works

Activating your event cover is built directly into the Event Hub workflow. There is no separate application, no form to post, and no waiting for a certificate to arrive in the post.

When you create your event in the Event Manager and work through the compliance checklist, you are confirming that your event meets the conditions set by the underwriter. Once complete, your event licence is available to download directly from the platform.

The checklist covers the essentials: risk assessments completed, paramedic booked, local hospital notified, referees verified, and participant and spectator numbers within the policy limits. These are not bureaucratic hoops. They are the foundations of a well-run, properly governed martial arts event, and working through them protects your participants, your club, and your cover.

For in-house events where all participants are current BMABA members, cover activates as part of your existing membership. If non-members are also participating, the event must be sanctioned by BMABA and the Event Ready Form completed through the Event Manager. Non-members can be added as temporary members for the event on a public liability basis for a nominal fee, subject to a minimum premium of £25 plus Insurance Premium Tax.

A quick but important note on what the event cover is and what it is not. This is public liability insurance. It covers third party claims arising from your negligence as the event organiser. It does not provide personal accident cover for competitors who sustain injuries during bouts, and no event PL policy does, regardless of who provides it. Personal accident cover is available separately as an optional add-on to individual memberships. The Events Insurance Explained article in the BMABA Handbook covers this in full if you want the detail.

Why This Matters

Running a well-governed martial arts event has always required time, planning, and a reasonable amount of expense. The insurance piece alone has been a barrier for smaller clubs who want to give their students competitive experience but cannot justify the per-event cost alongside everything else.

Removing that barrier is something we have wanted to do for a long time. It has taken the right policy structure, the right underwriter, and the right platform to make it possible without compromising on governance or cover quality.

The Event Hub is also designed to make the planning process itself significantly less stressful. Financial modelling before you commit to a venue. All your documentation in one place. Collaboration tools so nothing falls through the cracks between you and your co-organisers. A compliance checklist that tells you what you need before you need it.

We want BMABA members to run more events, better events, and more confidently governed events. This is how we are making that happen.

Get Started

Head to the Event Centre at mybmaba.org.uk/event-hub to explore the guides and resources, then move into the Event Manager at mybmaba.org.uk/event-hub/event-manager/ to create your first event and work through the compliance process.

If you have questions about how the cover works, what the conditions mean for your specific event, or anything else, the Events Insurance Explained article in the BMABA Handbook is the right place to start. Our team are also on hand if you need to talk something through.

Not yet a BMABA member?

Joining is free and takes minutes. Head to bmaba.org.uk to find out more and get started.

Once you are in, instructor insurance, student cover, and now free event cover are all available from a single membership, all underwritten by AXA XL via Lloyd's, and all managed in-house by a team that actually knows martial arts.