[MUSIC] No one likes to think about career-ending injuries, but we have to talk about it. When you're representing the professional athlete, you have to think about worst case analysis. Jim Convertino is the expert in this area. This is a person, he is a worldwide expert on insurance protection for the professional athlete. Jim's stable of clients go on and on. You'll hear him talk about from the beginning, the middle, the end of the professional athlete's career, how he protects against income reduction, income cessation, and career threatening injuries to the extent that he can. He'll also talk about third party clients, anything that might create even reputational harm, social media protections. Jim, on the insurance side, is as good as there is on the business. We're very happy that he was able to join us. And I think you'll find his protection advice for the superstar athlete in particular, is good as there is in the world. And remember, this is the guy, you'll hear it, who wouldn't take on Lebron's account early days for reasons that he'll share with us. So stay with us for this video and we're really glad and thank Jim Convertino for being with us today. Hello. Welcome back. We're proud to welcome Jim Convertino today to speak about the evolution of the amateur and professional athlete. And protecting against the risks inherent in playing pre-professional and professional sports. Jim, thanks for being with us. >> Thanks, Peter. >> Great to have you here as our guest. >> My pleasure. >> Let's begin at the beginning. How could an amateur athlete, let's take a baseball player possibly needs insurance protection. >> One thing we've seen Peter is with an amateur athlete is that they start his or career. Obviously there is a great risk of injury, so we look at disability coverages. Obviously with social media becoming more and more prevalent. Whether you're in high school or even in middle school now they're tweeting things so there's obviously a risk involved in that as well. >> How can you protect against a bad tweet? It's out there, the world has seen it, or an Instagram photo that a young now, let's make a professional athlete tweet. >> Sure, unfortunately those tweets obviously more often than not, there's something that's not necessarily a good thing. So we advise all of our clients, for example, whether you're an amateur, whether you're a professional, or even the college level. By tweeting, be very careful what you tweet, but in fact if you do have a tweet, I mean you can get sued for something like that, under personal injury coverage for libel or slander, things like that. So, it is a coverage that is covered under a basic homeowner's policy. But in many cases unfortunately you may not have enough protection under that, depending on what the tweet says. >> Okay now, would it destroy amateur eligibility for a pre-professional athlete to take out coverages like we're talking about? >> As long as they do it on their own and pay for it on their own, it's not. It's not an issue. >> Can their parents pay for it? >> Absolutely. Correct. >> Ok, you just can't have the agent. >> Absolutely. >> We studied that, as well. >> Exactly right. >> Can't have the agent. That would render them ineligible. >> Correct. >> Ok, let's stay with the hypothetical. You've been quoted publicly, so we can talk about it. When LeBron James then agent Aaron Goodwin turned down coverage when he was turning pro, what happened there? >> Yeah, I insured LeBron, he was here in Cleveland. And as I do with all of our clients, we offer a comprehensive simplification of their insurance program. And when LeBron was just getting out of high school, I was well aware of what the possibilities were for him, obviously which came to fruition. And unfortunately his agent declined an umbrella policy, which is an excess liability policy to protect him from lawsuits, etc., things like that. Unfortunately his agent declined the coverage and at that time I decided. If it's something you're not going to allow me to do to protect your client properly, I prefer to walk away from that. Needless to say he was very shocked by that. How can you walk away from LeBron? I said, it's not a problem, it's an integrity issue for me. I'm a consultant just like a lawyer would be or a doctor or anything like that. So we need to protect your client properly. So he decided not to get the umbrella. Ironically when you look at it now it's kind of silly to even think about something like that. And, I decided to drop him as a client. >> So, you became famous for the person who fired LeBron. >> Exactly right. [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] Well done, well done. >> Thanks. [LAUGH] >> Now, let's talk about this excess policy, and I think Aaron Goodwin was quoted as saying, yeah, and maybe a flying saucer will fall down out of the sky and drop on his head too. >> Right. >> What would it and I'm sure he has it by now a person like LeBron, who goes to the mature stage goes to the client he's making hundreds of millions of dollars, you have clients like that. How big an excess policy should a mature athlete have, who's is worth a couple hundred million dollars or more? >> Great question Peter, that comes up all the time. What I advise my clients is, first of all, how do you look at insurance philosophically? Secondly, a lot of people say to me, like, how much is enough, if you will. >> Right. >> And, so what we do is, we always present options to our clients. Unfortunately, people have the impression that an umbrella policy could be x amount of dollars depending on how many millions you buy. Whereas, opposed to what we do is bring different options to the table and discuss it with your client. Use any high-profile client for example. What are they involved in, do they entertain quite a bit, are they married, do they have children, do they have boats, do they have motorcycles? We look at the entire exposure for all of our clients, and then once we have that exposure we'll present options to the agency, advisor, and the client themselves, and say, here's what you're worth, here are your exposures, here are your options, and what do you think? I mean, you can, you know, how much insurance is enough, if you will. >> Right. >> So what we do is, we have clients who are worth 2 or $300 million. We'll look at $50 or $60 million umbrellas for them as a safeguard and then obviously present options where you can actually increase that umbrella down the road, should you sign a new contract. We take great pride in knowing what our clients are doing from a contract standpoint, from an endorsement standpoint. So, often times what we'll do is, we'll go ahead and approach the agent and say, might just notice where, Joe just signed a new extension. We may want to look at higher liability coverages. So, we're always very proactive in staying ahead of that to make sure those liabilities coverages meet what their concerns might be. >> Great answer Jim thanks. Let's talk about an NFL player if we can if it's pubic hockey nets, Knicks like we talked about in the prep session, how do you protect against the possibility of permanent disability injury in the NFL? >> Yeah, what we do is, as I mentioned earlier, we're very proficient in terms of making sure that we understand what our clients contract position is. As you know with the NFL, the contracts aren't guaranteed. So what we'll do is we'll approach all of our agents, our advisers, our clients toward the last year or two of their contracts and say, as you have that contract coming up, you may want to consider having a disability policy to give some protection in event of a knee injury or something like that. Unfortunately, what we see a lot of the time is, the agents or advisers are going to the client and saying, here's a disability policy that costs you x amount of dollars, but there's nothing to show for it. You can't drive it, or feel it, or touch it. >> Mm-hm. >> So, we see a lot of clients, unfortunately declining that. And the famous last words are, it won't happen to me. We see that all the time unfortunately. >> Yeah. going to live forever. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah, I'm super, I'm Superman. >> Absolutely. >> That sort of thing. So, how would you value, let's take a hypothetical guy, entering into his free-agent year, no guarantees beyond that. How would you value, how much insurance he should have to replace the value of his next contract. >> Mm-hm. >> Assuming it can't happen. >> Well, what we'll do Peter essentially is we'll look at that position, we'll look at that receiver, let's use a receiver for example. Compare it to other contracts, talk to the agent or adviser and say, what kind of contract are you looking for, what kind of guarantees you looking for, and base the insurance on that in terms of, again, going back and presenting options. Some agents will say, I can give you an example, we'll look at maybe a $5 million disability policy versus 10 or 20. Again, what we do is make sure we present options. Knowledge is power. >> Mm-hm. >> To me, and to our clients as well. So we present those different options to our agents. They're very pleased with the options, and then we talk them through in terms of, well here's what you may want to look at. There's cost versus the coverage factor obviously. But part of that is making sure that the client understands. Here's the risk involved. Here's the cost involved. Here's also the cost involved if you don't look at getting that policy if you're injured during the course of that year. >> Let's switch to golf. Hypothetically somebody who has, now you're going to insure against all the endorsement income too. >> Correct. >> What happens when as happened to World IMG client Tiger Woods. You have all the cancellations of the endorsement agreements due to a morals clause alleged violation. >> Right. Right. >> Can you insure against something like that? >> We can and we have Peter. In fact, again, knowledge is power. What we have found is anytime we speak with an agent or adviser, it's unfortunately surprising how little they understand in terms of what the exposures are for some of their clients. So for example, one thing we're very unique across the country is within our own division my associate director and I handle that for the client, as well as their homes and their autos. But things like cancellation insurance, events cancellations, personal appearances, public appearances, birthday parties, disability, life. Anything that encompasses that athlete we can insure. But also simplify the process for the agent or adviser and the client as well. So, you're not calling ten different people for ten different types of coverages which can result in a number of coverage gaps as well. >> Now, we talked about declinations what happens when you make a strong recommendation, usually working not directly so much with the athlete but his adviser, but the athlete him or herself declines coverages that you're recommending. How do you protect your agency and yourself in that case? >> What we'll do is in terms of the summaries we present to the agent or adviser, we're very clear, if you like this summary let, if you like the coverages let us know. If you decline the coverages, simply e-mail us the declination. Being very clear about it. We'll put that in the subject line as well, declination of coverages. And then if necessary we'll actually have them sign the application saying they've declined that coverage. We talk a lot in this evolution of NFL players. Let's go back there for a minute. What if the injury is a cumulative brain trauma injury? We talked about the concussion litigation that's very sad and unfortunate. What about a claims made versus, I just discovered the claim many years after I retired. How would a policy respond in that situation? >> Well, and that's another case in terms of how a policy at the appropriate time, we're finding more, as you know, back to education is power, that we're educating our clients in terms of putting the proper coverages in place. So, if something does happen down the road, they're going to be properly covered, as you know, with the lawsuits going on. Unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg. So we take great pride and make sure we're following those cases and making sure the insurance responds accordingly for our clients down the road. >> Well, can you, yeah I'm sure you do get timeliness objections. Oh come on, you knew you had a brain injury many years ago and now you're 45 and trying to make a claim. How do you reply in that situation- >> Well, If we're not seeing now as we are starting to see, as you know, we're going to see more and more and more of that and again, that's making sure we stay ahead of the curve in terms of educating our clients for what can happen now. But as you know, it's that invincibility part of an athlete when they're 22 years old or 32 years old seeing not what's going to happen down the road. So part of what we do is make sure educating our clients in terms of here's what can happen down the road. I think as we become more and more knowledgeable in terms of what can happen versus 10 or 15 years ago. I think you're seeing more agents and advisers receptive to what the options are in terms of providing the proper coverage for them. >> What if unfortunately, let's take Kyle Turley for example, with whom we worked at IMG Football. >> Sure. >> Been very vocal. >> Sure. >> Heavily involved in, in all sorts of litigations and disability claims against the league. >> Right. >> What about he didn't have insurance when he played, he got it as he retired, oh no the injury happened before you had insurance. How would you tease out that hypothetical? When we really didn't know about his brain injury till many years after because it takes many years to recognize that sort of an injury. >> Yeah, and that's something we're going to see more and more of obviously as the public becomes more knowledgable, as medical technology says like. Okay with more tests we found out you were 32 when this started happening versus 35 and 36. I think it's a matter of simply keeping up with the insurance carriers from the standpoint of where, determining when that actually happened. Looking back, hindsight's always 20/20. Again we take great pride in making sure from our clients when we have our clients at 18 years old to understand, look you're going to be 45 one day hopefully and this kid. We see that all the time Peter, unfortunately where people just don't have the proper coverages. What frustrates me, what frustrates our team is, we look at people's coverages, whether it be something like a Kyle or anybody like that, and go. How could you not have the proper coverage in place that time? It's extremely frustrating. >> Yeah, and the in-betweener is perhaps he had coverage through the league when he played. >> Correct. >> Then he retires and set for life, he thinks, and then the injury manifests itself. >> Exactly right. >> So you're saying for the retired athlete, that may be the most important time to get good coverages in place. >> Without a doubt. Absolutely, without a doubt. [MUSIC]
