Protect Your Fantasy Football Investment

MIAMI (CBSMiami) — From protecting your car and home to your pet's health, you can buy insurance for anything.

Now, a new kind of insurance is becoming popular with people who participate in fantasy sports leagues.

Football is a rough game and players get hurt all the time. For the 25 million Americans who play fantasy football injuries can ruin a season and cost a player big money.

It's all about the team's standings at the end of a football weekend. In fantasy football a team is made up of players picked from across the league. At the end of the season the team with the best standing collects a big jackpot.

When a player gets hurt and misses games he misses fantasy games too, and your fantasy season can be ruined.

It happened to fantasy player Denis O'Leary. One of his players suffered a season-ending injury.

"You're banking on him to be the cornerstone of your team, to be the one you can brag about week in and week out and now you're season's shot. So it was heartbreaking," said O'Leary.

For O'Leary, once was enough. He signed up for protection and insured his fantasy players.

Henry Olszewski, a Long Island native, started Fantasy Sports Insurance, the first company to offer this type of policy, after he lost a star player to an injury two years ago.

"We said, 'oh, it's too bad there's not an insurance product to cover this' and I said no, there isn't, but maybe there could be," said Olszewski.

Fantasy team owners can insure players for $100 to $1,000. If an injury causes a player to miss nine games there's a payout.

A second Long Island company is now offering policies to players nationwide.

"When you look into it, it actually makes a lot of sense because you can get killed if you lose a player early," fantasy player said Jim Edwards.

O'Leary said that having the insurance lets him relax when his players are on the field.

"I can watch the game now in peace instead of every tackle being a stressful event thinking that your fantasy season is going to end, so it's good," said Edwards.

Football is by far the most popular game but insurance is also available for baseball and hockey.