A message from our president, Brandon Parrish

"Are you tired of telling the hospitals and doctors that you got hurt playing football?"

My name is Brandon Parrish and like many of you, I have grown up with a love for action sports, riding motocross, snowboarding, wakeboarding, skateboarding, BMXing, riding street bikes, and racing on closed courses. Starting at the age of fifteen, I raced motorcycles for twelve consecutive years, three years professionally, and on top of that, I accidentally started a career in the insurance industry in 2003. Being a racer and insurance agent, I saw that many riders and racers were having problems getting insurance. Either their policy did not cover racing and they lied to the hospitals and doctors about how they got hurt, or they just simply did not have insurance. In 2007 I started RiderSurance.com to promote health, life, and disability insurance to individuals and families targeting the action sports industry. Since the beginning I have dealt with many walks of life from the richest to the poorest, to the sickest to the healthiest; who either did not have insurance, the correct insurance, or enough insurance in force. One of the main reasons that I have found as to why people are not insured properly is the lack of awareness. To increase awareness, people need to be educated and have a credible source to obtain coverage and get their questions answered.

Health Insurance
­ Insurance that provides payment of benefits (for medical bills) for a COVERED accident or illness.
•I stress covered because there are many insurance policies that can and will exclude payment of benefits due to certain hobbies and occupations whether it is for fun, compensation, or profit. Make sure you read your policy or ask RiderSurance!

Important health insurance definitions
•Insurance Application – the paper or online application required to apply for insurance coverage. On an individual basis (meaning not through a company) you are not guaranteed coverage. The application goes through a process called medical underwriting and after review, the insurance company can either rate up your policy or decline you for coverage. That is why it is so important that once you are approved for coverage to never cancel it because you would be required to apply again.
•Pre-Existing Condition – Typically, a medical condition that you have been diagnosed with or treated for prior to your application. If you do not have a lapse in coverage for more than 63 days, most companies will give you pre-existing credit so you can receive benefits immediately. If you did not have previous coverage, for example, the company can put a 12-month waiting period on the policy before you would be eligible to receive benefits related to that condition (see policy specific details).
•Deductible – A specific dollar amount that your health insurance company may require that you pay out of pocket each calendar year before your health insurance plan begins to make payments for claims. Not all health insurance plans require a deductible.
•Copayment – A specific charge that your health insurance plan may require that you pay for a specific medical service or supply without meeting your deductible. For example, your health insurance plan may require a $20 copayment for an office visit or brand-name prescription drug, after which the insurance company typically pays the remainder of the charges.
•Coinsurance – The amount that you are required to pay for a medical claim, apart from any copayments or deductible. For example, if your health insurance plan has a 20 percent coinsurance requirement (and does not have any additional copayment or deductible requirements), then a $100 medical bill would cost you $20, and the insurance company would pay the remaining $80. If you have a deductible of $1,500 and then you would pay the first $1,500 then 20 percent of all charges up to your out-of-pocket maximum.
•Out-of-Pocket Maximum – Once you reach this limit, you are typically covered 100 percent for the remainder of the calendar year, as long as you stay in-network and the charges are a covered benefit.
•In-network – When a provider (doctor or hospital) is contracted with the health insurance company to provide services to plan members for specific prenegotiated prices.
•Out-of-network – When a provider is not contracted with the health insurance plan. If this happens, typically you pay more than the in-network price, though there are some exceptions. In many cases, the insurance company will either pay less or not pay anything for services you receive from out-of-network providers. Most of the time, lifethreatening emergency room visits are coordinated with your in-network benefits so you do not have to worry if the hospital is in-network on an emergency basis.
•Lifetime Maximum – The amount of money that the insurer will pay out during the life of your policy.  Example: $2,000,000.

Accidents Happen – Source: Injury Facts, 2010 Edition, National Safety Council.
• About 42.4 million visits to hospital emergency departments in 2006 were due to injuries.
• In 2007, 34.3 million people, about one out of nine, sought medical attention for an injury and 27.7 million were treated in hospital emergency departments.
• Falls are the leading cause of nonfatal unintentional injuries that are treated in hospital emergency departments.  Over 8 million people were treated in a hospital emergency department for fall-related injuries in 2007.

If you think these facts are alarming, let me mention that these numbers are based on the general population and not target specific to the action sports community. You can just imagine how the statistics would look if they were aimed at action sports only. I personally do not have one racer friend who has never been injured riding or racing.

Average Treatment Cost – Source = "Treatment Cost Advisor Based on a Male Age 20-44, Treatment Within 92877 Zip Code" (Corona, California), MyAnthem.com + Web-Md, March 2, 2009.
The first dollar amount represents the average cost with insurance and the second dollar amount is the average cost without insurance.
• Emergency room visit – $701/$1,543
• One office visit – $66/$91 (usually several)
• One physical therapy visit – $148/$247 (usually many depending on how serious the injury)
• One arm/shoulder x-ray – $207/$449 (typically several views)
• One CT scan arm/shoulder – $972/$1,988
• One MRI arm/shoulder – $1,708/$3,301
• Shoulder surgery open (meaning an incision is made) – $6,911/$17,263
• Arthroscopic shoulder surgery – $5,769/$16,110
• Arthroscopic knee surgery; tendon repair – $4,033/$10,302

Several Personal Experiences
• I broke my femur racing motocross when I was 20. I was in the hospital for 3.5 days, and the medical bills were approximately $24,000.
• I broke two metacarpals in my hand in a road racing accident. A hospital visit for three hours, three X-rays, and outpatient hand surgery was approximately $12,000.

Disability Insurance – Insurance that replaces a portion of your income if you're unable to work for an extended period due to a COVERED accident or illness.
• I do want to mention that while disability insurance is one of the most expensive insurances, there is a reason for that. The reason is very simple; your chances of becoming disabled prior to your retirement is much greater then you dying prematurely, especially with racing motorcycles or other action sports. Ask yourself, could you go 90 days without a paycheck? The most popular answer is no. If we were to become disabled, unfortunately there are still bills that need to be paid like mortgage or rent payments, utility bills, groceries, car and motorcycle payments, car insurance, child care, and medical bills just to name a few.

Life Insurance – Insurance that pays out a lump sum in the event of the insured’s death.
Being an action sports athlete or in this case a racer, life insurance companies categorize us as a high risk. They typically rate up the policies depending on how powerful the race bike is, and what your past and future racing plans are. There are many different forms of life insurance. Typically life insurance is used to pay cash to your beneficiary to help pay off debt and provide a source of income. Life insurance is also used in business situations called buy-sell agreements in which a partner insures his or her business partner’s life in the event of the partner’s untimely death. A life benefit would then be paid to that partner’s family in exchange for ownership of the business.

Supplemental Insurance – An insurance policy designed to pay for items and services not covered or included in other (primary) insurance policies. For example, health insurance deductibles, office visit copayments, crutches or wheelchairs, ambulance rides, mortgage or rent payments, utility bills, groceries, car and motorcycle payments, car insurance, etc. A good example of a supplemental plan would be an accident policy. Currently, the company that I have my accident policy through has several exclusions that they will not pay benefits for. In our case, they have an exclusion for participating in any sport or sporting activity for wage, compensation, or profit, including officiating or coaching; or racing any type vehicle in an organized event. Every day we get requests for a plan like this that will cover action sports; however, there is not a company on the market that is offering this until now. Click here to learn more about it!

RiderSurance.com is an action sports-friendly place to quote and apply for insurance. The perk of this site is we only offer plans that do not have hobby or occupational exclusions specific to racing and riding.