SLC announces premier international insurance scheme for contracted players

Sri Lanka Cricket yesterday announced it had obtained comprehensive worldwide insurance coverage for all its contracted national players. 

The coverage, which is underwritten by a reputed global insurance giant, provides players with a substantial increase in medical and personal accident benefits.

The scheme, which comes into effect immediately, will see each player receive a health benefit of up to 900,000 GBP (approximately Rs. 180 million) per annum and a life insurance benefit of up to $ 5,000,000 (approximately Rs. 750 million) in the event of death or disability. Sri Lanka Cricket General Secretary Mohan de Silva, explaining the advantage of this comprehensive cover, said: “Cricket, like all sports, is intensely physical, but unlike most other sports, the wear-and-tear on a player is considerably more because he’s out there performing consistently for a solid 4-5 hours at a stretch. The toll this takes on the body is massive, and add to this the grueling schedule that a cricketer plays and practises under, their bodies are under immense strain. This makes injuries overly commonplace, and together with our best efforts to reduce injuries, we also look at the best possible injury management.

“The Executive Committee was very concerned with the multitude of injuries we seemed to be fielding, and together with the Cricket Committee we put in place many preventative measures through the High Performance Centre. In fact we are currently in the process of conducting a special session with a podiatrist who is working with the national team as well.

“This enhanced insurance scheme covers the players worldwide and is an extremely comprehensive one which includes benefits such as road and air medical evacuation and repatriation when required. This gives the players a boost of confidence knowing that they can afford the best possible medical care for any injury and the security of a $ 5 million life benefit will not go unappreciated I’m sure. We must realise that these players are professionals who dedicate the bulk of their time to cricket. This means that upon retirement, be it by choice or not, they have only what cricket gives them to fall back on,” he said.

The Sri Lanka team has been plagued by injuries in the recent past and players and resource staff have been working systematically with biometric analysts and medical specialists to overcome this concern in time for the 2017 Champions Trophy campaign.

The team is currently in peak condition with expert coach Allan Donald being quoted as saying that they cannot be more ready than they currently are.