Sports Insurance Blog » excess insurance

Several of the coach certification training organizations offer General Liability insurance as a membership benefit to the coaches. This is a great benefit and is designed to act as a “safety net” in the event that the sports organization neglects to provide its own insurance or in the event that such insurance contains unacceptable exclusions.

Some sports organizations that require all of their coaches to be certified mistakenly interpret this membership benefit as a “green light” to forego the purchase of their own General Liability insurance. Such practice is a dangerous mistake because individual coach certification General Liability insurance will not provide protection under the following circumstances:

* It won’t cover the sports organization as an entity itself (ex: corporation) and as a result the assets of the entity are unprotected in the event that a lawsuit results in legal defense costs, settlement, or adverse jury verdict. Even small sports organizations can have tens of thousands of dollars of asset value in its bank accounts, equipment; real estate, etc.

* It won’t allow for the issuance of a certificate of insurance under the name of the sports organization which may be required as a pre condition required by a property owner for field or facility access.

* When a youth participant is injured, it is customary for all adult volunteers who are in close proximity to the injury to be shot gunned into the lawsuit based on negligent specific supervision. This includes the head coach, assistant coach, manager, umpire, referee, team mother, etc. In addition, the sports organization board members and officers will normally be included based on lack of general supervision. The problem is that not all of these adult volunteers are likely to be certified coaches and as a result some will be unprotected.

* Most coach certification liability policies only cover lawsuits arising out of direct coaching activities. However, many lawsuits in the youth sports context arise out of non sport activities and outings such as swimming parties, ice cream / restaurant celebration trips, backyard cookouts, banquets, fundraisers, etc.

In summary, all sports organizations need their own General Liability policy.

Source: John Sadler

]]>