Published: Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010 8:57 p.m. MDT

Utah company offers new solution for insuring sports accidents

LEHI — Pro snowboarder Pat Milbery spends the ski season launching himself 50 feet in the air and sailing with the greatest of ease back into the belly of that no man’s land of winter sports — the halfpipe.

Over and over, almost with every run, he relents to the urge to push himself a little higher, to attempt a few more spectacular tricks. And at almost every turn, his fear of a spectacularly bad landing gets a little louder.

The thought of turning himself into a heap of broken bones isn’t what scares him. Rather, it’s the financial free fall that would accompany any serious injury.

He, like thousands of professional and amateur athletes, is playing a kind of cat-and-mouse game with the injury odds, forgoing expensive medical insurance plans that don’t cover a lot of injuries they’re likely to sustain.

“I don’t like thinking about the what-if’s while I’m out there trying to concentrate,” Milbery said.

“I hate living in fear and thinking about the bad things that could happen, and they’re pretty bad with snowboarding,” he said, adding that worrying about it throws off his concentration, which adds even more risk to a risky sport.

Insurance underwriters regard playing sports as an optional activity, not necessary in day-to-day life. Plus, risks vary from person to person and sport to sport, making it a nightmare to plot on an actuarial table.

“Fact is, there is less risk to the insurer than groups of regular folks who aren’t active and eating themselves into illness,” said Dustin Smith, general manager of The Factory sports complex near Thanksgiving Point.

Smith believes the plan makes so much sense, he has made XSI the complex’s title market partner and changed his business name to XSI Factory.

“It is the natural outcome of our everything-under-one-roof policy,” he said, noting that the 80,000-square-foot complex is being remodeled to make room for new sports and a new era of being the best site for any sport, no matter how deep someone wants to go.

“It’s just prudent to offer the most serious athletes some sense of financial security if they are injured,” he said. “And, XSI is an embossed invitation to the most reticent exercisers who might need just one little push to finally get the sofa off their backs and get moving.”

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