The NCAA's Catastrophic Injury Insurance Program recently was extended through the 2006-07 school year, but with noteworthy changes.

The policy, which on August 1 is introducing a previously announced increase in the deductible from $65,000 to $75,000, will be revised beginning in August 2006 to address what is perceived as a disproportionate percentage of claims over the past seven years stemming from cheerleading injuries.

"In cheerleading, we're seeing trends of really high loss ratios to the catastrophic program," said Juanita Sheely, NCAA travel and insurance coordinator. "With our current provider, Mutual of Omaha, there have been six total cheerleader injuries, with four what we consider truly catastrophic injuries. Those four represent 22 percent of our overall claims costs, second only to football injuries. This percentage is very high when you consider what a small portion of all covered student-athletes cheerleaders represent.

"We're looking at some safety initiatives for cheerleading, to try and get some control over that."

Those initiatives will lay the groundwork for next year's policy change (effective August 1, 2006), which will require cheerleaders to be under the direct supervision of a coach or advisor who has completed safety-certification training at the time of an accident, for coverage to apply.

"Currently, the policy says cheerleaders' activities have to be 'authorized, organized and directly supervised by the institution,' " Sheely said. "We're changing the 'directly supervised' requirement to 'directly supervised by a safety-certified coach or advisor.' "

Certification will be available from the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Advisors (AACCA), a nonprofit affiliate of Varsity Spirit Corporation, the parent company for the Universal Cheerleaders Association and Universal Dance Association.

"We are the largest training organization for college and high-school cheerleaders in the United States," said Jeff Webb, founder and chief executive officer of Varsity Spirit. "We have been at the forefront of the focus on safety for 15 years. We've developed safety guidelines, and helped develop complete safety programs that can be used by schools."

Varsity's summer camps -- in addition to helping develop routines, providing skills training and educating cheerleaders about their role in managing sportsmanship and fan behavior -- feature safety awareness training, including a safety test that is administered at the end of the training session. Beginning this summer, the organization also is offering safety certification opportunities for coaches and advisors at those camps, and will continue to do so in other settings during the coming year.

"There are certifiers all over the United States, and we are working to develop a number of certification sessions to make the program available in any particular area where coaches may want to attend," Webb said. "There will be multiple opportunities."

He believes the catastrophic-injury insurance requirement is a starting point for an extensive safety-focused collaboration between the NCAA and his organization, which this summer is hosting about 9,000 college cheerleaders and their coaches at camps.

"With the NCAA requiring the coach to at least be AACCA certified, it requires an institution to really concentrate on making sure they have a safe program," Webb said. "It's the second leg to what we do."

Varsity isn't limiting itself to certification.

"It's only one piece of the puzzle," Webb said. "There are other elements we feel are important as well, and we have programs to address each one."

The most important element, he thinks, is equipping intercollegiate athletics programs to effectively supervise cheerleading programs.

"The great majority of institutions now have their cheerleading squad under the athletics department, which wasn't the case 15 or 20 years ago. It's important the athletics administration monitor the program, and make sure the coach is administering the program in a safe way," he said.

To support monitoring, Varsity has developed and is planning to provide to institutions an audit questionnaire that supervisory personnel in athletics departments can use in reviewing cheerleading activities with the coach or advisor.

"The audit asks how the program is being administered, what the practice sessions are like, how they're focusing on safety, what they're doing," Webb said. "The audit requires the coaches and the squad to really think about things, and affirm they are doing what they need to be as safe as possible."

Varsity also plans to give institutions access to results of the safety tests taken by teams at its camps, to help assess teams' and coaches' safety awareness.

"Cheerleading can be a relatively safe activity, if it's supervised properly," Webb said. "What we're finding is that many athletics departments, who wouldn't normally have someone with these skill sets within their organization, hire outside coaches. Frankly, these coaches may have technical knowledge, but may not be mature enough, and may not understand their general role well enough, to provide for safety."

Administrative oversight also is important from an insurance perspective, suggests Sheely, because the catastrophic-injury policy limits the situations in which coverage is provided.

"Some schools think that when cheerleaders compete at national competitions or go out into the community for community service or to promote the program, that those are covered under the catastrophic program -- but they're not," she said. "That's a concern for us, and we want to make sure schools understand what is covered and what is not.

"Our program only covers cheerleaders when they are cheering or practicing the cheers at intercollegiate sports activities. It's strictly cheering for basketball, or cheering for football, or other intercollegiate sports."

Varsity Spirit Corporation has a separate catastrophic-injury insurance program that covers cheerleading and spirit squads when they are traveling to and participating in camps and competitions it sponsors, including the Universal Cheerleaders Association, the Universal Dance Association, the National Cheerleaders Association and the United Spirit Association.

Institutions can expect to receive more information on the catastrophic-injury insurance program and cheerleading safety initiatives in the annual insurance mailing from the national office, scheduled for the first week in August.

Next year's new restriction on cheerleader coverage is a logical step in the NCAA's efforts to ensure it can continue providing a program that has paid benefits through the past seven years for 20 injuries resulting in total disability, 37 fatalities, and 62 other injuries whose costs exceeded the program's deductible amount.

The Association constantly continues to evaluate risk factors, in consultation with American Specialty, the NCAA's insurance and risk management advisor, and Mutual of Omaha.

In addition to cheerleading, risk-management discussions recently have focused increasingly on head injuries -- which account for 24 percent of projected claims costs for all catastrophic injuries -- and travel-related accidents, which were responsible for nine of the 37 fatalities (24 percent) during the past seven years.

Sheely said the NCAA's risk management staff currently is working with the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports in its ongoing efforts to monitor head injuries and concussions, and also recently has worked with the National Transportation Safety Board in creating a "best practices" document promoting van safety.

"The idea is to protect student-athletes and others included in the catastrophic-injury program, as well as protect the insurability of the program," Sheely said.

-- Jack Copeland