diff --git a/micro_sam/training/semantic_sam_trainer.py b/micro_sam/training/semantic_sam_trainer.py
index da061a94..61baf4c8 100644
--- a/micro_sam/training/semantic_sam_trainer.py
+++ b/micro_sam/training/semantic_sam_trainer.py
@@ -51,6 +51,10 @@ def __init__(
         self.num_classes = num_classes
         self.compute_ce_loss = nn.CrossEntropyLoss()
         self.dice_weight = dice_weight
+
+        if self.dice_weight is not None:
+            assert self.dice_weight > 0 and self.dice_weight < 1, "The weight factor should lie between 0 and 1."
+
         self._kwargs = kwargs
 
     def _compute_loss(self, y, masks):