Dizzy Dean: What You Need to Know Before You Apply for Coverage

If you are a multi-team league, you should apply for coverage under the legal name of your league and report and pay a premium on behalf of all of your regular season teams prior to tryouts. If you make the mistake of applying separately team by team, there is no way to extend General Liability insurance to cover your league as an entity and its board members and officers.

Accident and General Liability insurance for all your teams are needed to protect yourself and to comply with Dizzy Dean rule book tournament insurance requirements for travel teams. If you purchase Accident and General Liability insurance on behalf of 100% of your regular season teams, you will automatically meet the Dizzy Dean rule book insurance requirements for your tournament teams and will sail through the credentials committee meeting. And, if you host an official Dizzy Dean tournament, your policy will cover the hosting of the tournament.

Under-reporting of teams will jeopardize the payment of your claims and will hurt the integrity and competitiveness of the Dizzy Dean insurance program. When a claim is submitted, your claims adjuster will verify the age groups and number of teams for which insurance was purchased prior to paying a claim. The claims adjuster will check your website and/or social media as well as make an inquiry with Dizzy Dean headquarters and compare the age group and number of teams against what was reported on your application. Under-reporting may result in claim denial. Also, failure of the carrier to collect the appropriate premium for the risk exposure will degrade the loss experience of the program resulting in future rate increases.

Most leagues need all of them. Without a doubt you need to carry Accident and General Liability insurance to protect your league and teams and respective directors, officers staff, and players. Not carrying these two policies on all teams in the league is the equivalent of managerial negligence.

Also, leagues need to carry Directors & Officers Liability insurance because of the escalation in lawsuit types that are not covered by General Liabilitysuch as discrimination based on race, sex, age, or handicap; failure to follow own rules or bylaws when making a decision such as player eligibility dispute; and wrongful suspension or termination of staff or players.

A Crime policy is a must for leagues that maintain bank accounts and credit card accounts. Any league that does not have appropriate financial checks and balances on these accounts is ripe for insider embezzlement, use of league account to make personal purchases, or theft of equipment. Unfortunately, insider embezzlement happens too frequently in youth sports organizations due to lack of financial controls.

Any league that has significant equipment values at risk in the event of fire, wind, outsider theft, or vandalism should purchase Equipment insurance.