Headstrong program by Nationwide and K&K now offered to athletes in a fourth state

Athletes who suffer head injuries will be offered coverage in an additional state beginning in August.

Headstrong Concussion Insurance is backed by carrier Nationwide and offered through K&K Insurance in Wisconsin to the 80,000 student athletes who comprise the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association.

USA Today reports that each athlete will be covered for $121,000 per year to pay for concussion treatment and any neurological follow ups that may be deemed necessary. Coverage is secondary to any other valid collectable insurance, but it will become the primary benefit if no other policy is available. It will also cover the cost of deductibles or co-pays.

“The potential cost to a kid or a family should not be the reason that they don’t get the diagnosis, the care, the follow-up treatment that they should have if there is a concussion,” WIAA executive director Dave Anderson told USA Today. “This is good for kids.”

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The policy will be available in the state when the next school year starts. It will cost $1.50 per athlete and will cover any student who participates in WIAA sanctioned games and practice games.

The state will be the fourth to provide such coverage to its athletes, following Michigan, Montana and Arizona.

Also according to the report, the WIAA board has ratified the policy’s adoption along with approval to raise regional tournament prices by $1. Part of the proceeds of the increase will go to premium payments.

“We have a long history of trying to do good things with and around head injury,” Anderson said in the report. “We’re the first state that required a kid not to be able to return if they were suspected of being unconscious.

“And if we ever have to defend ourselves in one of those sort of concussion lawsuits, it may or may not make any difference, but we will be able to point to the fact that we’ve done a lot of things over a lot of years in a moral and conscientious sort of way to try to do things right,” he concluded.