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Golf courses are portraits of serenity – expanses of green and a speck of color flapping in the distance to mark the hole.
They're also a likely place to find such dangers as alligators, lightning strikes and errant golf balls flying through the air. Rare as those risks may be, golf courses have unique hazards – aside from sand traps – that make insuring them a colorful niche business within the property-casualty industry.
The Travelers Cos., sponsor of this week's Travelers Championship in Cromwell, is one of the biggest insurers of golf courses, including TPC River Highlands where play was suspended and the course was vacated for more than an hour Thursday because of lightning and wind.
Travelers also is the official property-casualty insurer of the PGA Tour and Champions Tour. And while golf courses boomed in the 1990s and early 2000s, the business suffered a crash in the recession, with attendance cut in half at some courses.
Few lines of business indicate economic strength or weakness like property-casualty insurance for golf courses. Excluding the highest-end country clubs that have steady membership during any economic condition, many private and public courses that appeal to the middle and upper-middle class only do well when their customers feel free to spend money on a pricey leisure sport.
In turn, the golf-course owners cut back on expenses in lean times, and taking a lower-cost insurance plan is an easy choice.
"I don't think this industry is going to see the light of day for at least another three to four years, to where they're back to where they were before the recession," said Shawn M. Kraatz, vice president of Alliant Insurance Services, an insurance brokerage with headquarters in Newport Beach, Calif., that sells coverage, including Travelers, to hundreds of golf courses nationwide.
It's also not a typical business to insure with claims ranging from golf balls knocking a person unconscious to people falling out of golf carts or getting struck by lightning while holding a metal club in an open fairway.
Travelers designed its trademark Eagle 3 property-casualty insurance for golf courses in 1987. One of the oldest lines of golf-specific property-casualty coverage, Travelers' Eagle 3 is the preferred insurance of the National Golf Foundation, which is the biggest industry resource for golf-related businesses.
Alligator Bites?
What other venue is occasionally built squarely in the habitat of mountain lions or rattlesnakes, and also has moving vehicles without traffic laws or side doors, let alone seatbelts — as well as people whacking deadly projectiles in the direction of their fellow players?
One complex claim involved a golf course set in a forest that was covered in fallen trees after a windstorm, said Kraatz, the insurance broker. The coverage included removing debris, but it also included replacing the trees that were features on the course. It took a month and a half to determine the forest from the course trees, he said.
The water hazards alone are practically a paradise for alligators, not to mention a hazard for someone trying to retrieve a ball from the pond.
"Knock on wood, we haven't had a claim of that sort," Travelers' golf-course insurance underwriting manager Ric Sirmans said of alligator-related claims.
Would an alligator bite be covered by insurance?
"I guess it would depend on what you did or didn't do to forewarn the golfers … just like bees or rattlesnakes or anything else," Sirmans said. "You need to have a warning at least alerting the golfers and members that there's a potential out there."
Travelers has a risk-management program to prevent circumstances such as a golfer wandering into snake-infested weeds looking for a lost ball.
Animal attacks don't even make the list of common claims on the golf course. The greater concern to insurers is amenities that golf course owners had added in the past decade to broaden the attraction of joining a private club. That can include swimming pools and equestrian facilities, which bring additional risks of injury or death.
Safety was the overwhelming concern, of course, when incoming lightning suspended the Travelers Championship in Cromwell on Thursday. But, said tournament meteorologist Stewart Williams of Telvent-DTN, which contracts with the PGA, "Liability is probably the second thing."
They're also a likely place to find such dangers as alligators, lightning strikes and errant golf balls flying through the air. Rare as those risks may be, golf courses have unique hazards – aside from sand traps – that make insuring them a colorful niche business within the property-casualty industry.
The Travelers Cos., sponsor of this week's Travelers Championship in Cromwell, is one of the biggest insurers of golf courses, including TPC River Highlands where play was suspended and the course was vacated for more than an hour Thursday because of lightning and wind.
Travelers also is the official property-casualty insurer of the PGA Tour and Champions Tour. And while golf courses boomed in the 1990s and early 2000s, the business suffered a crash in the recession, with attendance cut in half at some courses.
Few lines of business indicate economic strength or weakness like property-casualty insurance for golf courses. Excluding the highest-end country clubs that have steady membership during any economic condition, many private and public courses that appeal to the middle and upper-middle class only do well when their customers feel free to spend money on a pricey leisure sport.
In turn, the golf-course owners cut back on expenses in lean times, and taking a lower-cost insurance plan is an easy choice.
"I don't think this industry is going to see the light of day for at least another three to four years, to where they're back to where they were before the recession," said Shawn M. Kraatz, vice president of Alliant Insurance Services, an insurance brokerage with headquarters in Newport Beach, Calif., that sells coverage, including Travelers, to hundreds of golf courses nationwide.
It's also not a typical business to insure with claims ranging from golf balls knocking a person unconscious to people falling out of golf carts or getting struck by lightning while holding a metal club in an open fairway.
Travelers designed its trademark Eagle 3 property-casualty insurance for golf courses in 1987. One of the oldest lines of golf-specific property-casualty coverage, Travelers' Eagle 3 is the preferred insurance of the National Golf Foundation, which is the biggest industry resource for golf-related businesses.
Alligator Bites?
What other venue is occasionally built squarely in the habitat of mountain lions or rattlesnakes, and also has moving vehicles without traffic laws or side doors, let alone seatbelts — as well as people whacking deadly projectiles in the direction of their fellow players?
One complex claim involved a golf course set in a forest that was covered in fallen trees after a windstorm, said Kraatz, the insurance broker. The coverage included removing debris, but it also included replacing the trees that were features on the course. It took a month and a half to determine the forest from the course trees, he said.
The water hazards alone are practically a paradise for alligators, not to mention a hazard for someone trying to retrieve a ball from the pond.
"Knock on wood, we haven't had a claim of that sort," Travelers' golf-course insurance underwriting manager Ric Sirmans said of alligator-related claims.
Would an alligator bite be covered by insurance?
"I guess it would depend on what you did or didn't do to forewarn the golfers … just like bees or rattlesnakes or anything else," Sirmans said. "You need to have a warning at least alerting the golfers and members that there's a potential out there."
Travelers has a risk-management program to prevent circumstances such as a golfer wandering into snake-infested weeds looking for a lost ball.
Animal attacks don't even make the list of common claims on the golf course. The greater concern to insurers is amenities that golf course owners had added in the past decade to broaden the attraction of joining a private club. That can include swimming pools and equestrian facilities, which bring additional risks of injury or death.
Safety was the overwhelming concern, of course, when incoming lightning suspended the Travelers Championship in Cromwell on Thursday. But, said tournament meteorologist Stewart Williams of Telvent-DTN, which contracts with the PGA, "Liability is probably the second thing."
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