1. Purpose
BMABA CIC is a signatory to the Armed Forces Covenant. This policy sets out, in plain terms, what that commitment means in practice for anybody in the Armed Forces community who holds a membership, insurance policy, instructor registration or club affiliation with us.
We have written this as a public commitment rather than a statement of intent.
Everything in this policy is something a member can hold us to.
2. Our commitment
The Armed Forces Covenant rests on two principles, which we adopt in full:
No disadvantage. Those who serve in the Armed Forces, whether Regular or Reserve, those who have served in the past, and their families, should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services.
Special consideration. Special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given most, such as the injured and the bereaved.
Martial arts training is, for many people, a route back to structure, physical confidence and community. That is the reason BMABA exists. We recognise that service life creates specific and predictable obstacles to maintaining a martial arts career: deployment, mobilisation, relocation, and the practical difficulty of keeping certification current when you are not in the country. This policy removes those obstacles wherever it is within our power to do so.
3. Scope: who this policy covers
For the purposes of this policy, the Armed Forces community means:
Serving Regular personnel of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, British Army and Royal Air Force
Serving Reserve personnel of any of the above
Veterans, meaning anybody who has served for any length of time in any of the above
Members of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary
Merchant Navy personnel who served in support of the UK Armed Forces
Cadet Force Adult Volunteers
Immediate family members and dependants of the above
Bereaved family members of those who died in service
Length of service is not a qualifying factor. One day of service qualifies a person as a veteran, and one day of service qualifies a person for everything in this policy.
The discount at section 4 and the provisions at sections 5 and 6 apply to those who serve or have served. Our commitment to their families is set out at section 7.
4. 10% lifetime discount
4.1 What we offer
Any member of the Armed Forces community who has served, or who currently serves, receives a 10% discount for life across BMABA membership and insurance, applied on both initial joining and every subsequent renewal.
This is not a promotional offer. Once verified status is on your profile, it stays there permanently. There is no re-application, no annual re-verification of your service, and no expiry.
The discount applies to:
Individual instructor membership at all tiers
Assistant instructor and volunteer registrations
Club and club team memberships
Public liability and professional indemnity insurance premiums placed through BMABA
Renewal of any of the above
4.2 Stacking with other offers
The Armed Forces discount can be used in conjunction with other offers and discounts. It is not an either/or choice. If you are entitled to another BMABA discount, you receive both.
4.3 Proving service
To activate the discount we need to see evidence of past or current service.
Acceptable evidence includes, but is not limited to:
For veterans
HM Armed Forces Veteran Card (physical or the digital version held in GOV.UK One Login)
Certificate of Service or discharge papers
MOD leaver paperwork
Service medal award documentation
A Veterans Railcard or Defence Discount Service card
For serving personnel
MOD Form 90 (the standard Armed Forces identity card)
Current Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army or RAF identity card
A signed letter from your unit or chain of command confirming current service
Reserve service documentation
If you hold something not listed here and you believe it evidences your service, send it to us and we will look at it. This list is a guide, not a closed set.
4.4 Redacting sensitive information
You are welcome, and encouraged, to cover up anything sensitive before you send it to us. That includes your service number, unit, posting, address, date of birth and any other detail you would prefer not to share.
We need to see only enough to confirm two things: that the document is genuine, and that it belongs to you. Everything else can be blacked out. A photograph of a card with half of it covered by a sticky note is entirely acceptable to us. We would rather you sent us a heavily redacted document than felt uncomfortable, and we will never ask you to un-redact something in order to qualify.
4.5 How to send it
You can submit your evidence by either of the following routes:
Email it to [email protected]
Send it to us on live chat, wherever you see the chat bubble on our websites or in the Hub
We aim to review and confirm within three working days.
4.6 What happens next
Once verified, we activate a Veteran or Currently Serving status flag on your BMABA profile. That flag does two things:
It generates, inside the MyBMABA Hub, an annually refreshed unique discount code which you apply at checkout to take ten per cent off any and all costs. A new code is issued each year automatically. You do not need to request it.
It tells our team that you are entitled to the additional provisions in sections 5 to 7 of this policy, so that if you contact us about a deployment or a lapse in certification, we already know the context and you do not have to explain yourself from scratch.
4.7 What we do with your document
We treat service documentation as confidential personal data. Our practice is:
The document is reviewed by a named member of the customer services team
The verified status flag is recorded on your profile
We record only that verification took place, the date, and who carried it out
Your service status is never shared with clubs, other members, insurers or third parties without your consent, and is never displayed on any public register or directory
You may ask us to remove your Armed Forces status flag at any time by contacting customer services.
5. Provisions for currently serving personnel
The following apply to anybody currently serving, in either the Regular or Reserve Forces, who holds a BMABA membership or insurance policy.
5.1 Membership pause and extension during deployment
We will pause and extend any membership for the full period a member is on active deployment or mobilised service.
You do not lose the time you have paid for. When you return, the unused balance of your membership is reinstated in full.
Worked example
A member holds a twelve month membership. Seven months in, they are deployed overseas for nine months. Five months of membership remain unused at the point of deployment.
On their return, those five months are restored to their account and their membership runs on for a further five months from the date they come back. In total the membership has spanned twenty one calendar months, because nine of those months were paused.
There is no cap on the number of times a membership can be paused, and no cap on the length of a single pause.
To activate a pause, tell us you are deploying. You do not need to provide deployment orders or operational detail, and we will not ask for any. Confirmation from you, or from your unit, that you are deploying is enough. Where you are unable to tell us in advance, we will backdate the pause once you are able to make contact.
5.2 Certification and documentation during deployment
We do not expire, suspend or remove the membership of currently serving personnel because supporting documentation has gone out of date while they were deployed.
Where we know a member is away on active duty, we will:
Maintain their membership and their entry on our public registers and directories, annotated to reflect that they are on active service rather than showing as lapsed or non-compliant - this is usually managed by an extension to the expiry and a change of the suitability vetting to 'not currently teaching' to avoid items of evidence looking unverified
Not issue automated lapse, suspension or non-compliance notices during the deployment period
Hold the record open pending their return
This covers currency documentation such as first aid certification, CPD requirements, annual declarations and licence renewals.
Important safeguarding qualification
This provision applies to the administrative status of a member's record. It does not, and cannot, permit a person to teach or to work with children or adults at risk while holding lapsed safeguarding clearance or lapsed first aid certification.
A deployed member is by definition not teaching, so no practical conflict arises during deployment. On return, a member must complete the requirements in section 5.3 before resuming instruction in regulated activity. We will support that process quickly and at our cost where possible, but we will not waive it. Where the law or our safeguarding obligations require a current check, that requirement stands.
5.3 Support on return: the sixty day grace period
Coming home and immediately facing a list of expired certificates is a needless additional burden. This provision is agreed with our insurers and recorded in the addendum to our master policy, so it is a contractual position rather than a goodwill gesture:
A sixty day grace period from your date of return to bring DBS checks, first aid certification, CPD and insurance requirements back up to date, during which your insurance cover and membership remain in force
One to one support from a named member of BMABA staff for the whole of that period, to work through what needs renewing, in what order, and by when
Where a course or check needs booking, we will identify providers and dates for you rather than sending you a link and leaving you to it
Priority processing of any DBS, first aid or CPD submission made by a returning service member
The grace period begins on the date you tell us you are back, not on the date your certification expired. If sixty days is not enough because of injury, medical treatment, resettlement or any other reason, tell us and we will extend it.
5.4 Reserve Forces and annual training
Reserve Force members who are mobilised are treated in exactly the same way as Regular personnel under this policy.
For shorter commitments such as annual continuous training, weekend drills or courses, contact us and we will apply a proportionate pause. There is no minimum period below which we will refuse to help.
6. Stand-in instructor cover during deployment
A club can close permanently in the time it takes to complete a single operational tour. This provision exists so that no BMABA instructor loses their club because they were serving.
6.1 What we provide
Where a currently serving member is deployed and holds instructor insurance with us, we will:
Allow the deploying member to nominate a stand-in instructor, who registers with BMABA as an affiliate through the deploying member's account, free of charge, if they are not already a BMABA member
Fund the stand-in instructor's full membership and insurance for the entire deployment period, at no cost to either party
Hold and transfer the instructor insurance so that the club remains continuously insured and can keep running. This is handled as a routine systematic change and group cover declaration with our insurers, so there is no gap in cover at either the point of transfer or the point of return
6.2 On return
When the deploying member returns:
The unused balance of their own membership is passed back to them, in line with section 5.1
The insurance is transferred from the temporary instructor back to the named member
The temporary instructor is demoted to affiliate status, which they retain free of charge for as long as they wish
Worked example
An instructor is six months into a twelve month membership when they are deployed for a year.
BMABA funds a full twelve months of membership and insurance for their nominated stand-in instructor, covering the whole deployment. The club continues to operate and remains insured throughout.
On the instructor's return, their own six months of remaining membership is passed back to them and runs on from that date. The insurance moves back to them. The stand-in instructor drops down to free affiliate status.
6.3 Conditions
The stand-in instructor must meet BMABA's standard instructor requirements, including safeguarding clearance appropriate to the age group taught, first aid certification, and the relevant grade and experience for the discipline. This is a safeguarding and insurance requirement and cannot be waived
The stand-in instructor is subject to the same conduct, complaints and disciplinary framework as any other BMABA instructor
The nominating member remains the named club owner throughout. The transfer is of insurance and operational cover only, not of ownership
BMABA-funded cover is available to currently serving personnel on deployment or mobilised service. It is not a general cover-my-absence facility
Funded cover is provided for up to a maximum of one year in any five year period without formal review. Where a member's service commitments exceed that, we will review the position with them individually and retain full discretion to continue funding beyond the limit. The limit exists so that the scheme remains sustainable, not so that we can refuse people, and we expect to exercise that discretion in the member's favour in most cases
7. Families of the Armed Forces community
The Covenant covers families as well as those who serve, and we recognise that service life places real demands on them: frequent relocation, long separations, and the disruption that comes with both.
We would rather be honest about the limits of what we can commit to here. BMABA is a professional standards body. We do not run the classes, hold the mats or set the local timetable, so much of what would genuinely help a service family sits with the club rather than with us. Writing a list of guarantees we could not reliably deliver would be worth less than saying plainly what we will do.
So: if you are the family of somebody serving or ex-serving and something about martial arts training has become difficult because of service life, come and talk to us. That includes finding a club near a new posting, moving a student's records and training history between BMABA clubs, asking a receiving club to recognise grading progress made elsewhere, or anything else we have not thought of. We will do what we can, case by case, and we will not treat it as an unusual request.
Contact [email protected] and tell us you are getting in touch under this policy.
8. What we will not do
To be clear about the limits of this policy:
We will not waive safeguarding requirements. Nothing in this policy allows a person to work with children or adults at risk without current, appropriate clearance
We will not disclose your service status to anybody without your consent
We will not ask you for operational detail, deployment locations, or any information you are not free to share
We will not require you to prove your service more than once
9. Raising a concern
If you believe BMABA has failed to honour any part of this policy, or if you have been disadvantaged because of your service, contact us at [email protected] marking your message for the attention of the Head of Social Impact.
Concerns raised under this policy are handled outside the standard complaints queue and are escalated directly to the Senior Leadership Team.