Medical insurance and football : an in-depth analysis of the issues that affect the viability of health insurance for professional and semi professional football players in Malta

Abstract

Football is a game practiced by millions of persons worldwide. Over the years, the game of football has made huge strides in terms of development and has now become the main earning activity for a number of individuals. The constant demands of football have ultimately led to an increase in awareness regarding a player's health. Footballers are nowadays full-time professionals who are better physically trained to be able to cope with a hectic footballing schedule. Professional football players who suffer an injury would seek to avail themselves of the best treatment available in order to return to action at the earliest. This, together with other issues such as the higher risk of injury that the occupation presents, classifies the risk of insuring football players as being a specialist risk. Most health insurers therefore exclude this risk from standard cover and this has brought about the need for a specialist medical insurance policy for professional and semi-professional footballers within the insurance industry. The intention would be to provide cover for the treatment of footballing injuries. In Malta, although football is widely followed and practiced, few are those individuals who have taken up football as a full-time profession. In light of the foregoing, this study seeks to enable a better understanding of the main issues which will affect the viability of such a specialist health insurance policy in Malta. The findings seek to shed light on the various opinions of local insurance companies, a person who is a specialist in sports and exercise medicine and a professional football player on the crucial elements concerning the insuring of professional and semi-professional football players. The one-to-one interviews sought to gather a better understanding of: What circumstance may make the provision of a medical insurance policy for football players more profitable for insurers; - The reasons why only one insurance provider opted to offer such an insurance policy; - How the take up of this medical insurance policy for football players may be performing locally; - Whether there is a possibility of growth within this segment and the measures which may be applied to stimulate such growth. The research reveals that insurance companies consider the risk of insuring professional and semi-professional football players as a bad risk which is unlikely to enable them to offer the insurance policy at a reasonable premium and with adequate levels of cover. A variety of factors are disclosed and explained in this study which include the size of the professional Maltese footballer market, the increased cost of medical treatment and the increasing rate of injuries amongst others. The recommendations listed in this study seek to provide insurers with an opportunity for the issuance of a medical insurance policy for professional and semi-professional football players.