General Insurance Article - Injuries costing £123m a season for Premier League clubs

 Furthermore, JLT Specialty has created a “most impacted club” index, by calculating the value of the player to the particular club they play for in terms of their monetary value measured against how long the player has been absent due to injury, and thereby assigning an ‘impact score’ to each club.

 Based on the length of injury time relative to the cost of players, JLT found that despite Manchester United having the greatest number of injuries overall since the 2011/2012 season, Tottenham Hotspur was the most impacted team. Whilst most of the largest clubs have all had prominent injury problems and as such are high up in the “most impacted club” league, Manchester City and Chelsea – the premiership winners of the last two years – fare considerably better. Clearly they have either been lucky or prudent in regard to injuries and injury management.

 Duncan Fraser, Head of Sport at JLT Specialty, commented: “Looking at the winners of the last two Premiership seasons and their injury record compared to their nearest rivals, the importance of keeping players fit is very clear. Chelsea and Man City have been far more fortunate in this regard than the likes of Man United and Spurs.

 “As wages escalate in the top division – partly thanks to the injection of cash into the league from new TV deals – so too does the cost to clubs of injury absences. In the 2013/14 season alone, almost £130 million was paid out to players who were unable to take to the field due to fitness issues. As a result, clubs are increasingly looking to insure their players so that, if they get injured for a prolonged period of time, they can claim a certain percentage of their large salary paid back. Depending on the circumstances, this could be up to half of the total injury bill.”