Sports insurance

Australia traditionally has a system of 'user-pays' for sports injuries. Medicare, the universal insurer, covers sports injuries in addition to other health problems, but sports injuries are one area which highlight Medicare's deficiencies.

The football codes at professional level a re heavy contact sport s with a high risk of injury. Players taking the field must accept this risk. Players who receive catastrophic or severe permanently-disabling injury from sport should be able to receive compensation from a no-fault sporting injuries system. This is currently the case in the New South Wales and in New Zealand.

The New South Wales Sporting Injuries Insurance Scheme is a non-profit state government voluntary insurance fund . The Federal and /or other state governments of Australia should create similar no-fault compensation schemes to improve the care that Australia offers to severely injured athletes.

New Zealand has taken this approach to an extreme in having a national compulsory sporting insurance scheme. The outcome has mainly been positive.

Should Australia adopt New Zealand's insurance system for managing sports injuries? Read an editorial from the Medical Journal of Australia

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