Monday, July 27, 2009

Quaterback Insurance

Sam Bradford and Colt McCoy have both taken out insurance policies to hedge against a career ending injury in the upcoming season.

The way the article is written, it seems like the Texas star is paying a larger premium for his insurance policy than his Oklahoma counterpart. Is this because McCoy was sacked twice as often as Bradford, because McCoy has greater earnings potential, or because Sam Bradford's father is an insurance specialist?

Where would you assess the probability of a career ending injury to be? And as an insurer would you charge a higher premium to McCoy, Bradford, or Tim Tebow?

(HT: Nick Dipillo)

1 comment:

Pete Abbate said...

I have to express my surprise at the payout - McCoy will certainly earn far more than $3-5 million next year in the draft, and he likely will earn that as a guaranteed signing bonus rather than salary.

I'm going to decline to speculate on actuarial science and their methods, and I don't claim to follow enough college football to compare the playing styles of the three in terms of "risk of injury." (That factor probably needs to include quality of offensive line, an analysis of opposing defenses, and a myriad of other factors).

Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that which the most ignorant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignificant. ~Fredrich Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty