A note from Chris about the roots of this website:

I am Chris Martin, a Dad, and a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu athlete and coach practicing Jiu-Jitsu since 2008. Jiu-Jitsu is anything but a “gentle art” — and I have had my own share of injuries — most definitely a lot more than people who don’t train in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And along with injuries came the ever-increasing medical bills. The problem that I found early on is that most major insurance programs hardly cover any of the expenses incurred from treating injuries. For example, high deductibles, expensive copays, or even physicians who don’t accept major medical insurance PPO’s or HMO’s. And because of that disconnect in 2021, I decided to launch this website as a resource for the BJJ community, to help them learn about specific insurance programs that can actually assist them and their families in covering their medical bills when an unexpected accident or injury occurs.

Anyone with a number of years on the mat almost certainly has had injuries to the elbow, shoulder, neck, back, foot, or knee. According to a recent study, 58.8% of BJJ practitioners reported being injured as a result of practicing the sport. That same report suggests most of the injuries occur during regular training. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times I have had a black eye from a “normal night of training,” my hospital stays from a MRSA infection gone bad, or the time I had a stroke from a carotid artery dissection (during regular practice because I didn’t tap). If you train in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, then you are going to get injured at some point.

I started this website because I’ve seen many from the BJJ community not seeking help for their injuries. This is mostly because they worry about being stuck with huge piles of medical bills afterward. Even if you are covered under a major medical health insurance plan, those plans don’t typically cover the entire cost of your injuries, that is until you have met your deductible (and most of those plans have high deductibles, think $2500 or even $5000), which also means higher out-of-pocket costs. In simple words, you end up paying more from your own pocket. I’ve been there, and it has happened to me multiple times — until I came to know about some of the best insurance programs for Jiu-Jitsu practitioners.

I created this page especially so that the BJJ grappling community can understand how these insurance plans can benefit them financially. Considering the higher risk of serious injury for grapplers, I came to identify affordable insurance plans and policies that I decided to buy myself and introduce to my other friends in the Jiu-Jitsu community, and sure enough, within about 6 months, all of us had claims because either my friends got hurt, or in my case, I had my kids on my plan, and they got hurt in volleyball, which is also covered under these types of injury programs. For the cost of the programs to range between $25 - $35 per month, that was my ah-ha moment, and I wanted to share these programs with other grapplers who could benefit from having programs like these.

The types of insurance programs helped us pay the upfront bills associated with our getting medical care for injuries. Unlike traditional health insurance plans, these programs provided us with the freedom and flexibility to see any doctor, physio, or medical treatment center without restriction to networks. In other words, when my kids or I get hurt, we go anywhere to get treated for our new injury and then submit the claim later on, so we were even able to use alternative therapies from doctors or therapists not covered by traditional insurance plans.

You can learn more about these injury insurance programs here>>.