mike.m-@obra.org
I was recently contacted by a race organizer who had a rider injured at
their event and the rider had asked them about how to collect money from the
OBRA insurance to cover his medical expenses. This made me think that it is
time that I explain again how the OBRA insurance works.
OBRA purchases liability insurance. This is not medical insurance. The
insurance is not there to cover your medical losses. You need to have
personal medical insurance to cover those.
It would be great if OBRA could provide substantial medical coverage for
injuries sustained at races but the problem is that it would be very costly
to do that and it is not actually all that fair to expect a race organizer
to cover the cost of providing your health care. Basically it would be
similar to thinking that Fred Meyers should cover the cost of taking care of
your heart attack just because it happened while you were at their store.
The OBRA liability insurance covers the costs of defending and settling
claims of negligence against race organizers, officials, volunteers,
sponsors, land owners, etc. This insurance is not to protect you but rather
to protect the people associated with the race from claims made by you. It
is essential that there is liability insurance, not only to protect the
people associated with the race but because the land owners or road use
authorities will nearly always require that there be liability insurance or
they will not allow the race to happen.
In order to purchase liability insurance the company that sells this
requires that there be a medical rider in place. This medical rider is
purchased from a separate company. Basically this is what is know as "trip
and fall" coverage. The idea is that if a person has a portion of their
medical costs covered it is less likely that they will make a liability
claim. In order to keep costs down (i.e. entry fees down) we try to make
the medical rider as minimal as the liability insurance company will accept.
This means that the medical rider will be secondary (all other payers will
need to pay first), there will be a high deductible and a low limit.
The problem is that there are more people accessing the medical rider. This
is, in part, because there are more people who do not have their own medical
insurance. In fact, all the losses through the OBRA insurance plan have
been through the medical rider. There have been no liability claims. For
the last few years the amount paid out in claims under the medical rider is
likely higher then the amount paid in in premiums. Clearly, insurance
companies will not put up with this for long before they either raise
premiums or, more likely, stop issuing this type of policy.
It is essential that as many people as possible have their own medical
insurance plans. Many healthy people, like OBRA members, neglect to
purchase any because the think it is unlikely that they will need it. This
is very foolish since even minor and common medical problems are very
expensive. A majority of bankruptcies are related to medical bills. Going
without health insurance is far more risky than driving without car
insurance but far more people will do it. Racing bikes just adds more risk.
If you do not have a health insurance plan then you need to purchase one.
It does not have to provide much coverage for the medical cost you usually
pay but it should cover large losses. Get the highest deductible that you
can handle without going broke. Like most insurance, it should not be a
good deal. If you get more back in claims that you paid in premiums that
means that something bad happed to you.
Feel free to contact me should you have any questions regarding the OBRA
liability insurance policy.
Mike Murray