Rising sports-related brain injury insurance claims can be prevented: S&P
S&P Global Ratings has labelled sports-related brain injuries as one of the top emerging insurance claims in both the US and UK, in a recently published report.
The issue has become increasingly prominent, with a recent series of lawsuits in the US highlighting the potential risk of sports-related brain-injury liability claims, notably one high-profile class action brought against the US National Football League (NFL).
The report, ‘Good Emerging Risk Management Can Help Prevent The Rise Of Sports-Related Brain Injury Insurance Claims In The US And UK’, said that such injures had been seen as having potential to top the list of claims two years ago, but at that point didn’t pose a real threat.
The report highlighted that the number of reported sport-related has spiked in recent years, with a 32 percent rise in reported concussions in preseason and regular-season NFL games in 2015 compared to the 2014 season, which the report claims is the highest number in four years of record-keeping.
S&P believes that effective risk management, particularly how insurers prepare for risks that do not pose an immediate threat to their creditworthiness, but could do so in future, will prevent the ultimate cost of claims for these sports-related injuries from reaching the same level as that for asbestos-related claims for mesothelioma and asbestosis in the US and the UK.
S&P said: “US brokers and insurers have been increasingly drafting concussion-exclusion clauses, capping concussion lawsuit pay-outs on a per sports association or per insurance program basis, or using a special endorsement that voids coverage for concussion lawsuits unless risk-management controls such as mandatory coach concussion training have been put in place.
“In our view, the UK insurance industry can also reduce its exposure to the escalating risk of sports-related brain-injury claims by setting enhanced monitoring and prevention standards and more restrictive terms for relevant insurance contracts. We believe that the UK insurance industry is uniquely placed do this thanks to its widespread sponsorship of sports."
