Dizzy Dean: The Risk of Not Being Insured
If you don’t currently buy insurance, what you need to know about your risks
We insure 50% of all Dizzy Dean
Approximately 50% of all teams franchised with Dizzy Dean buy from the endorsed insurance program. The other 50%:
- buy from another source, which is dangerous. See 10 Reasons Why Dizzy Dean Insurance Blows Away the Competition; or
- mistakenly think they are adequately covered by a municipal recreation department, but may not be covered at all or the policy may have dangerous exclusions; or
- knowingly decide not to buy insurance or only insure tournament travel teams.
Significant injuries and related lawsuits regularly occur within Dizzy Dean and our carriers pay a significant number of claims
Accident claim cost: Average claim $1,404 Largest claim $26,000
General Liability claim cost: Average claim $24,000 Largest claim $105,000
In other baseball/softball insurance programs, our clients have had Accident claims that exceeded $100,000 and General Liability claims that exceeded $1,000,000.
Most common injuries/lawsuits in Dizzy Dean (Can you imagine these happening in your league?)
Player injuries: Slips/trips/falls in parking lots, on walking paths, and off bleachers; dangerous condition on playing field such as hole or exposed wire on fence; lack of supervision resulting in roughhousing or wandering into on-deck area and being hit by bat; lack of improper instruction resulting in inability to avoid wild pitch; being injured by coach hitting ball during batting practice, batting cage injuries, injures in game or scrimmage against older opponents; drowning or near drowning in swimming pools, etc.
Coach and staff injuries: Slips/trips/falls in parking lots, on walking paths, and on from bleachers; dangerous condition on playing field such as hole; technique demonstration injuries; batting cage injuries; being struck in head by baseball during batting practice; being assaulted by another coach or official; concession stand lifting injuries or burns, etc.
Lame excuses used for not buying insurance
We haven’t had any significant injuries or lawsuits in the recent past and are not likely to have any in the near future. Lucky streaks eventually come to an end, and who is going to pay the bills if no insurance is in force?
We believe we can’t afford it. The cost of Accident and General Liability insurance can easily be loaded into player registration fees for as little as $4 to $9 per player, depending on the age group.
We are adequately covered under a municipal recreation department insurance program. This may be the case in some situations. But our analysis of municipal recreation department insurance policies reveals that many times the expected coverage does not cover the league as an entity and its board or the policy has many dangerous exclusions such as the athletic participants exclusion or sex abuse/molestation exclusion.
Players, parents, board members and volunteers depend on you to purchase insurance to protect them, and you can be sued for managerial negligence if you don't.
- Players often can’t get medical treatment if their parents don’t have family health insurance or if they have a high deductible or coinsurance.
- Parents will often have no choice but to sue your league, its board members and staff in search of a deep pocket if they can’t pay their medical bills because you did not carry Accident insurance.
- Board members and volunteer staff are often shotgunned into lawsuits and they are depending on you to purchase liability insurance to protect their assets.
- Failure to carry adequate insurance can result in lawsuits against the league and directors and officers alleging managerial negligence.