Going on a sports holiday can always be good fun, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced player. However, the risk of accident is high, and the cost implications for damaged equipment can sometimes be a little off putting- this is where sports insurance becomes important.
There are loads of different insurances for sports, some specific for winter sports (which will be covered later), others for solo players and teams, and some for under 19′s playing sport. Most sports insurance will cover any sports, but for the more unusual ones you will often need to take out extra. For example, jet skinning, sky diving, hang gliding and other ‘extreme’ sports usually have to be covered separately due to the cost of the equipment and the heightened risk of danger. You can literally cover for any sort of sport from football to shark cage diving!
Most companies will offer some sort of sports insurance, but it’s best to go to a sports insurance specific site such as sportsocoverdirect.com who have more experience in the matter and can give you a better deal. This is because they rank the sports in groups of 1 to 4, group 1 being low risk sports like baseball, and 4 being high risk sports such as hang gliding so they give you appropriate cover specific to your sport rather than just a blanket cover like most companies will do.
What the sports insurance does, in more detail, is cover the cost of the medical expenses you require after an accident depending on the level of cover you have and will even fund you through physiotherapy and recovery and even legal costs if required. They will also cover the costs of repairs or replacement of equipment if damaged. In regards to equipment it has to have been a genuine accident or a theft or loss that was beyond your control, ie, someone breaking into the equipment shed when it was locked, or the airline damaging or losing your equipment.
However, all companies will tell you to follow rules given by your instructor and accidents caused by not paying attention or deliberately misusing equipment will be unlikely to gain you compensation- genuine accidents will as they cannot be helped most of the time. Still, to avoid such accidents always make sure you’re confident in the activity you’re doing, understand the rules and safety precautions and make sure that your equipment, if any, is in top condition.