What Injury Could Cost Your Sports Club

Every sporting career is a unique journey of ups and downs, whatever sport you play and whatever level you play it at. Pursuing your passion, whether that’s as a player, manager or club official, is what makes it all worth it.

Running a sports club, though, means managing your personnel and doing what’s best for them. Every year, around two million Britons attend A&E with some form of sporting injury. Injuries however, are not just an issue for an individual athlete, but for the club they play for.

Managing their road to recovery and ensuring they come back stronger builds more resilient, successful clubs and careers. In this guide, we talk about the real costs of injuries and what you can do to support players and keep costs down.

The correlation between player injury and the cost to the club

Player injuries cost clubs in several ways, including lost wages, increased medical costs and loss of performance. It’s why sports clubs spend enormous amounts on individualised training and top-class medical departments.

The impact of player injury, though, doesn’t change based on where you look on the sporting pyramid, only the scale of the numbers. Unsurprisingly, 50% of contact injuries were found in professional footballers.

Let’s examine the correlation between player injury and the cost to their clubs by using the Premier League as an example, using research from the British Medical Journal:

·      Direct Wage Loss – Clubs in the Premier League pay roughly £220,000 in wages on average per injury.

·      Performance Reduction – The BMJ found that clubs experiencing more injury days typically finished in a lower league position. In fact, it was estimated that every 136 injury days cost clubs one league point, with 271 days costing one league place.

·      Total Cost Per Club – It’s estimated that a Premier League club spends £45 million annually on injuries, due to wage losses and reduced league performance.

Of course, amateur and semi-professional clubs don’t have to endure these same costs, but the root causes of those costs stay the same. In particular, if you’re a club without a dedicated health insurance policy, you may be covering private healthcare costs out of pocket due to long NHS waiting times.

Get Sports Insurance for Your Club

The correlation between player injury and overall club performance

Yes, you can change health insurance providers without losing cover. The best way to do so is by working with an insurance specialist, who can conduct an in-depth review of your current policy and research how other insurers would underwrite, and how this would be impacted by your existing conditions. 

We can also research every policy option, cross-referencing medical consultants and clinic lists between insurers, making sure to find options which remove the need to wait for new referrals or switch doctors. This is the best way to change health insurance without losing cover. Every time a club is missing one or more of their standout players, it’s always going to mean changing the team around. Whilst young athletes often acquire unexpected opportunities in these scenarios, sports clubs must negotiate the challenges of playing without first-choice members.

Naturally, this means management has to get creative with overcoming these hurdles to maintain on-field performance and keep results flowing in. That’s why Dragonfly Crowd acts as your healthcare intermediary to help you source dedicated private health insurance suited to the world of sport.

Private sports health and injury insurance can support on-field performance by:

• Ensuring faster diagnostics, so that players can embark on treatment programs more quickly.
• Dedicated access to over 25,000 Bupa sports specialists to improve recovery outcomes and reduce the chances of recurring injuries.
• Managing athletes as they return to the field through mental health support.

Taking time away from the field is complex for individuals and clubs alike, but private health insurance can soften the impact, helping your club to maintain its high standards.

What player injury can actually cost your sports club?

Managing your sports club means balancing the books and ensuring that you’re not hit with unexpected out-of-pocket costs. Sports insurance for athletes is designed to provide surety, giving you access to regular premiums that can be factored into how you manage your club.

Furthermore, sports insurance provides protection for both individual athletes and your organisation. Here’s how injuries can cost your sports club, and how insurance deals with these problems:

·  Reduced Revenue – The absence of star players can reduce attendance, ticket sales and concession sales. Sports insurance that enables access to rapid diagnostics and tailored treatment programs helps return your leading players to the field faster.

·  Player Morale – Taking unexpected time away from the field can impact athletes physically and mentally. Sports injury insurance provides peace of mind by offering perks such as mental health support and lost-income protection, helping keep your club in the best possible mindset.

Sports clubs at every level contend with the need to provide their members with access to top medical care while balancing the books. Sports club health insurance is there to mitigate the cost of player injury, making it an invaluable long-term asset year after year.

How sports club health insurance helps to keep costs down

Sports club health insurance is one of the best-value investments clubs in any sporting discipline can make. Standard private medical insurance is often littered with exclusions for athletes, whereas NHS waiting times are often insufficient for rapid diagnostics and treatment.

Whenever a player is injured, clubs can quickly file a claim through their insurance provider and access fast-track recovery programs to get players back on the field sooner. This lowers the loss of competitive revenue and the need to pay for emergency replacements. Additionally, early intervention for sports injuries reduces the likelihood that straightforward injuries become long-term issues.

Sports health insurance also protects the future of your club in several ways, including:

• Avoid paying out of pocket for high-cost diagnostic tests, such as CT and MRI scans.

• Helping players to feel valued through premium health cover, thus improving player retention and slashing recruitment costs.
  
• Improved team performance, which can enable your sports club to excel to new heights. This can unlock future sponsorship opportunities and the chance to invest in what helps players perform at their peak.

Crucially, paying a regular monthly premium for your sports health insurance plan allows you to budget more effectively. No longer are you worrying about a sudden outlay due to a high-cost injury.

Taking advantage of these benefits means finding the right policy for your sports club. At Dragonfly Crowd, we are your healthcare intermediary. Through our partnership with Bupa, we can help you explore a wide panel of policies to point you in the right direction.

If you’d like to learn more about sports club health insurance and how it can help you reduce your long-term costs, contact us now.ife insurance for your circumstances, give us a call on 01204 866902.

Protect your Club and Players with Sports Insurance