Quote:
Originally Posted by Mbilica
My understanding is that as long as you are officiating a game that was assigned to you, you are covered if you have NASO. If you do an "unofficial game" such as a pick up game or a game which was declared a forfeit but they would like you to stay for a practice game, you are not covered.
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That part which I underlined is a myth, unless you or your assignor simply wants you to be unprotected. I have spoken over time with the people at NASO insurance, and with Bollinger, the USA/ASA insurance administrators, and that supposed excuse why umpires really just want to leave is bogus. Any official assigned by their organization assignor is covered for whatever is assigned; whether it is a league, a tournament, a practice game, a scrimmage, and YES, a practice game which was originally a scheduled game but is declared a forfeit. If you are still being paid, you CAN umpire what is there to umpire. This does also covers games that you pick up independently, but ONLY if it is common practice in your area to contract independently versus thru an assignor.
A few things that should be noted is that while NASO does provide some great liability and legal defense coverage, it does not provide any accidental medical coverage for the officials. If injured while officiating, you need to have your own medical insurance, unless you are covered by another "sanction" or umbrella officiating policy which covers you in that particular event. The issue of coverage with USA/ASA (and others, too, although some do, at least, offer optional coverage for other sanctions) is it only covers if the teams and the umpires are all registered to that sanction.
To the OP, if there is no league ball in that area that registers USA, just leagues that are nonsanctioned, then yes, USA registration and umpire insurance is only good for USA sanctioned tournaments. That's a decision/calculation each umpire group (or individual umpires) needs to make based on cost versus reward for USA (or USSSA, or any other sanction) for what you stand to gain. But the NASO insurance leaves a pretty significant gap in coverage (accidental medical) that they/you might need to consider.