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Journal News: "Injuries put athletes' families in financial bind"
In this file photo, Chris DiCintio talks with his players from Rye High School during a time out in the Class A boys semifinal game of the Section 1 basketball championships at the Westchester County Center on Mar. 1, 2006. (Photo: File Photo by Matthew Brown/The Journal News)
. . . Postgame Solutions, a start-up business in Massachusetts, has tried to help erase some of those gray areas and fill what president Jeff Lerner believes is a void in the marketplace.
Lerner founded his business early this year to help handle the complicated finances of expansive youth sports organizations. Chief among the products he offers is Season Interruption Insurance, which provides families reimbursement based on time lost to injury.
Lerner, a father of two, was inspired after watching his daughter miss three-quarters of a club soccer season that has cost him $3,000.
"My daughter suffered a high-ankle sprain in the first half of the first game of the season," Lerner said. "I don't think the ink had dried on the check. I had written the check and thrown out about $2,250 and there was nothing I could do."
Lerner found an insurer, Crum & Forster, to underwrite policies. They are sold to the club organizations — not directly to families — to and those organizations will, in theory, roll the cost of a premium (2.5 percent) into their participation fee. Families covered by the insurance are eligible to file a claim that will reimburse them for 90 percent of what they paid for that portion of the season.
"You would have to get a buy-in from the club overall, which means that you must get a buy in from the parents," said Paul Kurnit, a clinical professor of marketing at Pace University's Lubin School of Business. "The idea is interesting because of the legitimate fears from the parents and kids that you might get hurt. The level of play at every level is so much higher than it was 20 years ago. ... The issue of injury is much more center stage."
Lerner's product has been approved in seven states, and he hopes to add New York to that list soon.
"Parents are spending a tremendous amount of money in an uncontrolled environment," he said. "There's a ton of money being passed around and nobody's monitoring it."
Yet even with few safety nets in place, athletes and their parents are willing to take what can be serious a financial leap.
"These are kids who are the best athletes and many of them are looking at club sports as an opportunity to do the best they can," Kurnit said. "They are looking to their futures, to trying to get college scholarships, which are a really big business. Many will jump in and pay the freight even though it's high risk."
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