Dangerous Games.

As the threat of violence rises on the playing field, in the workplace and at school, insurers are creating specialized policies for sports officials, workers and educators.

In an incident that shocked the nation in July, a Massachusetts father and volunteer hockey coach was fatally beaten by another parent after the assailant complained that his son's practice session was getting too rough.

Last December, Cleveland Browns' offensive tackle Orlando Brown was suspended for shoving a referee during a game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The referee had thrown a penalty flag that accidentally hit Brown in the eye and caused severe vision damage that led to the team releasing Brown in September.

And some years earlier, an angry wrestler at a high school bout near Spokane, Wash., head-butted the referee, knocking him unconscious.

With these and similar incidents, the rage factor seems to have gotten so bad in professional and amateur sports that 14 states have passed legislation to boost penalties against those who assault sports officials. At least nine other states are considering similar bills.

"We have seen an increase in bad behavior by fans, coaches and players specifically directed at officials," said Bob Still, spokesman for the National Association of Sports Officials, a voluntary organization of 19,000 members that's based in Racine, Wis. "It's not verbal abuse--although the tenor of that has changed--but physical violence is much more prominent. We see a lot more cases reported where this crosses the line."

To assure its members that they have some kind of protection on the job, the association provides them with an additional benefit: They are automatically enrolled in a tailored insurance program that covers sports officials who are attacked by a spectator, fan or player while performing their officiating duties. The membership--mostly umpires and referees--officiates at various levels, from children's leagues all the way up to the pros.

Nora Stransky, president of Special Markets Insurance Consultants Inc. (SMIC), Stevens Point, Wis., designed the program after association leaders contacted her in 1997. "They wanted something very specific for their members, because the incidence of assaults was on the rise so dramatically," Stransky said.

One-of-a-Kind Package

Stransky describes it as a one-of-a-kind package that offers an initial consultation, legal services, accident/medical coverage and fees that are paid to officials on a game-by-game basis. "From the assault standpoint, we have the very first one that's going to go all the way," Stransky said.

The association's Assault Protection Program provides for legal services reimbursement, accident-medical coverage on a copay basis and game-fee protection against losing officiating fees because of an injury from an assault. The general liability program offers coverage up to a $3 million aggregate per event. This offers protection for liability resulting from bodily injury, property damage, personal injury and advertising injury and includes costs to defend against such claims.

Once an official reports an altercation, the program calls for a consultation and a review of the police report by NASO officials and the victim. NASO members also include sports attorneys, and an attorney is likely to sit in on that early conversation. The group examines what happened, what one party did to the other and why it transpired.

"When these incidents happen, we all try to look at ourselves to self-improve," Still said. "We ask, 'What action did I take that maybe made me come off too aggressive to the coach and he swung at me?'" Still said he equates this reaction to the battered-wife syndrome, a sense that the victim is at fault. "Officials do that, too," he said.

If the group thinks there is reason to pursue the issue, the coverage will provide for two hours of free consultation with a special attorney, Still said.

Ultimately, if legal action seems merited, the policy will pay up to $3,000 to cover 60% of the attorney's fees, with the member paying 40% of the total fees.

The idea behind all this is to discourage spurious litigation. "We really want to make sure that this is a serious situation and warrants taking legal action," Stransky said.

The program also picks up the medical expenses--up to $5,000, with a $250 deductible. This features an 80%-20% copay. "Say an official is assaulted and requires hospitalization," Stransky said. "This will pay up to $5,000 in medical bills."

If the injuries keep the official off the playing field for some time so that he or she loses game fees, the policy will pick up the missed fees for a total payout of $500. "For 99% of them, it's a hobby, a secondary income and not their full-time business," Still said. "In many cases, they are independent contractors and don't have the parks/recreation-department attorney to fall back on."

Coverage is a joint effort. Continental Assurance Co. and Continental Casualty Co., two Chicago-based CNA companies, provide assault accident-medical and game-fee coverage, and BCS Insurance Co., Chicago, provides general liability and legal-services coverage. Special Markets Insurance Consultants is the program manager for each of these companies.

"Fortunately, we've not had a lot of claims filed--just a few--and they've taken advantage of the legal consultation," Still said. "For members who have utilized this, it's been a great assistance."

Stransky said her organization only sees the cases earmarked for litigation. So far, one is in the pipeline, she said, and this involves a verbal and physical assault on an umpire who was officiating at a baseball game in the southeastern United States. It seems that the umpire's partner made a call that resulted in a third out and the coach asked the second umpire for an appeal, which was denied. The victim said that after the game, he was followed into the parking lot where he was pushed, shoved and poked in the face.

"It doesn't appear that there was serious injury, but there definitely was some abrasion," Stransky said. "The police were called-that's one requirement of the program, a police report."

While a death under these circumstances is rare, "violent and aggressive behavior is not untrod territory in referee land," wrote Barry Mano, president of NASO, in a recent editorial in Referee magazine. "While the incident at the hockey rink was absolutely deplorable, it energized the media to cover the issue of violent behavior at sporting events in general. That is a topic with which we refs are all too familiar," Mano wrote.

Violence Found Everywhere

But rage in these stress-filled times isn't limited to the playing fields. It boils over in offices, factories, school buildings, on the road and in the air. In the workplace alone, the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that there are 2 million violent incidents every year.

"Anyone exposed to reports in the media knows that violence is very much on the rise," said Mark Ogilvie, assistant manager of Employment Practices Liability Insurance at Lexington Insurance Co., Boston, a subsidiary of American International Group Inc. To address this, the excess-and-surplus lines carrier in March introduced Violence Guard, which it calls one of the first insurance policies designed to provide protection to businesses for liability incurred due to incidents of violence.

In citing the government's workplace violence estimate, Lexington's Chief Executive Officer Kevin Kelley said it was critical for businesses to take steps to prevent and prepare for such incidents.

"The exposure presented by this phenomenon may not be properly addressed by traditional insurance products," Ogilvie agreed.

The new policy provides indemnity and defense cost coverage for nonemployee claims arising from violent acts, excess "employers liability" coverage for employee claims arising from violent acts and business interruption coverage until the site can resume normal operation. The policy also contains a provision to provide a $50,000 death benefit to families of employees.

Insureds also have access to risk management services for assistance in security concerns. These services, which are provided free of charge to the policyholder, include a review of corporate policies dealing with issues of violence, security site reviews and seminars aimed at preventing violence. Counseling sessions are also made available after an incident occurs.

In designing the program, the insurer met the request of a broker who was representing a large, national transportation firm. "They have a work force that's not in a centralized location and does not lend itself to supervision by employers," Ogilvie said. He noted that this type of coverage also could apply to retail operations, hospitals and public schools, among others. He suggested that businesses review the policies they have in place and see if they offer the proper protection, considering the incidence of workplace violence.

Classroom Attacks

When it comes to attacks, schools continue to make the headlines, too. Although fewer school-associated violent deaths have occurred in recent years--and the vast majority of America's schools remain safe places--the total number of multiple-victim homicide events has increased, according to the 1999 Annual Report on School Safety, jointly issued by the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice. The April 1999 tragedy at Columbine High School, where two students fatally shot 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves, would fall into this category.

Also, one in six teachers reported having been the victim of violence in or around school, compared with one in nine teachers five years ago, according to "The Metropolitan Life Survey of the American Teacher, 1999."

Even before these latest reports were issued, the Horace Mann Life Insurance Co., Springfield, Ill., which has educators as its primary market, introduced its school Assault Recovery Plan nationally via the Internet in 1998. This was the first product the company has marketed through that channel.

This limited insurance policy provides benefits to educators and school personnel who are injured due to workplace violence--either on school property or at school-sanctioned functions. Benefits include a victim-assistance payment, in-hospital indemnity and accidental death and dismemberment coverage for policyholders assaulted at school.

"We work with a number of educator groups, and we were hearing them tell us that there was a need for this," said Cherie Miner, company spokeswoman.

In addition to the $1,000 payout, the assault coverage will pay as much as $500 a day for up to 180 days of hospitalization and $20,000 for accidental death and dismemberment. The coverage costs $4 a month. To be eligible for the benefits, personnel must work at least 17 1/2 hours a week at a school or college, file a police report after an incident occurs and have medical expenses, Miner said.

"The coverage helps to pick up extra expenses," Miner said. One example: A teacher has her glasses smashed while she is trying to stop a schoolyard fist fight. While her health insurance might pick up most expenses from her injuries, it likely would not cover replacement of the glasses. But the victim-assistance payment would, Miner said. This payment also could be used when injured teachers have to take some time off work, but still have to pay bills. "It gives them the extra cash to make sure those things are taken care of," she said.

In addition to offering this policy to individuals, Horace Mann also offers it as a group product for employers to purchase as a school employee benefit.

Miner said that while the policy has generated a lot of interest among teachers, this interest has tended to surge after incidents close to home, and not as the result of national news stories, such as the Columbine shootings.

"Customers have shown interest after something happens in their local communities and they tell us, 'We never thought that would happen here,'" she said. "People never want to think about such events, about the possibility they would ever need this."

To counteract this tendency, the insurer has included some Assault Recovery Policy coverage with the auto insurance policies it sells to members of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers organization. That means that "nearly 90,000 people have part or all of this ARP policy," Miner said.

This is in keeping with the company's philosophy of designing products with educators in mind. For example, its homeowners policy includes built-in coverage for a teacher's personal videocassette recorder that may have to be carted into the classroom to show educational films, Miner said.

So far, the insurer has seen mostly small claims in terms of the victim assistance benefit, only a handful of hospitalization claims and no death benefits. Most claims have been submitted by school security personnel or teachers, Miner said. In one case, a security guard was assaulted by students from another school following an athletic event. The teachers' claims usually spring from breaking up fights between students.

Insurance Trend

Like Horace Mann, other major carriers are beginning to offer assault insurance, said Alejandra Soto, spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute. "This is becoming a trend--something the insurance industry is responding to," Soto said. American International Group Inc., for example, is offering its Law Enforcement Professional Liability Policy, which goes beyond general liability policies to provide coverage to a law enforcement department and its employees for wrongful act claims of a third party resulting from police activities.

For NASO's Still, the need to provide this kind of coverage to sports officials is spawned by conditions in society. "There's been a downward spiral toward respecting any authority," he said. "There's less respect for police, firemen, civil servants, teachers." That carries over to sports officials, who often must make highly controversial calls before fans who put major emphasis on winning the game--and then respond violently if a ruling doesn't favor their team. Sporting events at the youth level are more prone to this--and the Massachusetts beating is a case in point--because there's no security in place, as there often is at high school, college and professional-level games, Still said.

"It's not getting any better," he said of public attacks against sports officials. "We're definitely seeing a trend where violence is becoming more common."