Chuckles,

"Shatter a lung or break a neck and see how far 100k or even 300k gets you. The jockeys assume the risk to some extent, but it is a workplace injury. Its covered everywhere else."

Chuckles, I don't know how it is in the Clown Union but....

Catastrophic injuries are NOT covered by standard insurance. You have to opt for long-term disability and PAY EXTRA for it. Even then, it runs out (as do conventional hospital benefits -- I know a guy who made about $100K in claims one year and his insurance RAN OUT and he was still in bed -- it does happen). You can also opt for various specific catastrophic injuries (loss of an arm or a leg for example) and you....pay extra by the limb (they quote prices for each injury covered).

Of course the jockeys could BUY extra coverage individually, but the bottom rung guys get hurt a little more proportionately by this type of arrangement.

Why doesn't the Jockey Guild (?) or some other jockey organization form a group and get standard insurance with higher payouts for all riders? If they went with a sliding scale, the high-end riders would pay more of the premiums (since they would probably opt for more coverage) and this would enable the insurance carrier to spread the risk and give the bottom-rung guys more coverage. The group of jockeys in the United States HAS to be big enough where there is an insurance carrier that would love to have them as a customer. The more I read about this, the more I think these guys must be getting bad advice.

HP