[Medical insurance problems of professional athletes]

Like every working person employed in Switzerland, sports professionals are also required to be insured under the Accident Insurance Law--the mandatory social accident insurance in Switzerland. They can also take out supplementary private insurance contracts for cases in which the mandatory accident insurance does not cover the total injury claim. Often the limitations imposed by law on accident insurance do not meet the demanding individual requirements of sports professionals, or more precisely, those of their employers. A survey of private insurance companies showed some difficulties encountered with the regulations regarding the damages of sports professionals. The main differences concern the interpretation of the legal terms of the notions of accident, of lesions assimilated to an accident and of occupational disease, questions of causality, problems of economy of treatment, excesses of rehabilitation, discrepancy between the ability for any working and the ability for sport, certain career constraints, and finally, problems with the termination of the career brought about by an accumulation of a series of chronic injuries.