The Lake Highlands Wildcat Club has announced it will fund catastrophic injury insurance coverage for athletes and other students participating in UIL activities for the remainder of the school year, and Richardson ISD will pick up the burden after that. This is a major improvement (hopefully one which will never be needed), since RISD had been one of just 5 out of 65 of the largest school districts in DFW which provided none.
The policy will have a $25,000 deductible, meaning most injuries – things like broken legs or torn ACLs – would be covered by parents’ insurance. Only something catastrophic – a spinal cord or similar injury – would fall under the new policy.
“These injuries are actually quite rare,” said Scott Johnson, president of the Wildcat Club, “but if something does happen, we’ll be providing a lot of coverage – $7.5 million over ten years. The board felt like we should do whatever we could for the kids.” The coverage extends to cheerleaders, members of the band and other UIL participants.
“The RISD is one of the few that didn’t have catastrophic injury insurance, and that surprised a lot of people, including the Wildcat Club,” Scott told me. The Wildcat Club will pay to cover LHHS, LHFC, LHJH and Forest Meadow, and the district will pay to include the four high schools and their feeder schools next year.
