Wells Fargo Insurance Services has created insurance packages that manage and identify concussions in youth athletes. It is the first of this type of insurance to exist. I am guessing that the recent news reports about young football players receiving concussions might have influenced the creation of this new policy.
It isn’t unheard of for a child to accidentally fall, and end up receiving a concussion. When this happens to small children, parents tend to take it very seriously. What happens next might be a trip to the emergency room, or a phone call to a pediatrician.
Things may go differently when the child is a high school student, and the concussion is the result of playing in a football or soccer game. Recently, it seems like there has been a lot of news about the dangers that can happen when a teenager gets a concussion, and then receives another one before the brain has had time to fully heal from the first injury. There is the assumption that the teen can “walk it off”, and go right back into the game.
Wells Fargo Insurance Services has created an insurance package that is designed to manage and identify concussions in youth athletes. The policy is being underwritten by Chartis U.S., who is interested in getting into the youth sports market.
Chartis is trying to raise awareness of concussion and head injures in youth sports. They created an educational program called “Ahead of the Game”. The purpose is to point out there can be serious consequences to exposing young athletes to the risk of having multiple concussions. According to the National Football League, there are 34 states that have passed laws regarding concussions in youth athletes in 2011.
Right now, the Wells Fargo “concussion insurance” is only available in California. Twenty clubs and school teams have signed up for it. It is geared for athletes who are 18 years old or younger. The insurance is a group policy, written for a particular youth sports team. The policy will last for the length of the season. It generally costs $5.00 per athlete, for a season that lasts three and a half months.
The “concussion insurance” is designed to be a secondary policy. In other words, if a youth athlete is covered by this policy, and gets injured, the medical bills would be sent to their health insurance plan first.
The Wells Fargo plan would cover some of what the primary insurance policy did not. If the athlete isn’t covered by health insurance, then the Wells Fargo policy would act as a primary policy. It comes with a $25,000 medical maximum. It does not include a deductible or co-pay.
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