Insurance made mandatory

12/04/2008 Half a million dollars personal liability cover is now a requirement for all drivers competing in both the V8 Supercar Championship Series and the second-tier Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series.

With extra cover previously non-compulsory, the V8 Supercars Australia board agreed to implement a new policy which will see every driver covered by this mandatory insurance minimum in time for next weekend's round three of the Championship in Hamilton, New Zealand.

“We just want to make sure a good level of protection is there for every driver to begin with,” said V8 supremo Tony Cochrane. “We'd like them to take more to be frank; we encourage them to take more than half a million. What we've done at board level is say $500,000 is now the minimum acceptable standard.”

Insurance policies are already in place through the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) as part of its membership programs which cover all licensed competitors for racing at CAMS-sanctioned events. A spokesperson confirmed to BigPond Sport that CAMS did encourage its members to pursue further cover, with upgrade opportunities widely available through its official insurance partner OAMPS.

However, considering the substantially different requirements of cover between the broader make-up of CAMS membership base and those contesting Australia's premier motorsport category, Cochrane said it was vital for V8 Supercar steerers to extend their cover further.

“For most, not all, but for most of our drivers this is their full-time job, even in the development series a lot of those drivers now this is their livelihood,” said Cochrane. “That's where it's different to people driving in the support categories where most of those people, not all, but 95 percent of those people are part-timers.

“Under the CAMS licence system a driver's only insured to the value of $75,000. Now CAMS can't change their insurance system just to accommodate purely V8 Supercars - if they up the premium, they up it for everyone,” said Cochrane.

All current V8 drivers were required to submit their insurance details to V8SA by today (Friday) and were given the option to take out cover through a provider of their choice or through V8SA which itself is helping competitors meet the safety standards as governed by the FIA.

“What we've done in our case is say: 'If you don't think you've got the power to go out and buy it, we V8 Supercars, will buy it en masse and you can have it our cost'. It's not very much, approximately of the order of $2800 a year which in our scheme of things is not a very big amount of money,” said Cochrane.

Ford Performance Racing's Steven Richards has supported the move, recognising that a minimum level of cover should be mandatory for those in the sport.

“We choose to take part in a profession that can be dangerous from time to time so it is part of our responsibility to ourselves and our families to have the adequate cover in place,” said Richards. “The last thing I would want is to be survived by a wife and kids who have no means of getting back on their feet should something happen to me on a racetrack.

The new insurance requirements are also required for drivers who will contest this year's two endurance events, the L&H 500 at Phillip Island and the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.