The new move announced in the United Kingdom targets a very specific area: reviewing insurance coverage for female athletes in matters such as pregnancy, contraception, menopause, Red-S and other conditions that affect women. The initiative forms part of the implementation of the recommendations in Karen Carney’s independent review of women’s football and has led the Women’s Football Taskforce to commission Loughborough University to work with insurers and specialist brokers to address exclusions and blind spots in existing policies. Among the steps already cited is the one taken by Aon, which has expanded its personal accident policies to include miscarriage resulting from a sporting accident as a standard provision, while other players in the sector review their products for sportswomen.

That step forward, however, does not by itself describe the real protection framework built so far. The area that has developed most in recent years has not been broad and uniform coverage of women’s specific health needs, but a much more recognisable block of measures centred on maternity, parental leave, contractual stability, return to competition and logistical support for childcare. The study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine identified policies across 20 international federations and concluded that fewer than half of international federations had specific measures for pregnant, postpartum or parenting athletes, with highly uneven implementation depending on the sport and the type of support.

The most visible progress

Many of the strongest cases have followed that route. FIFA has expanded its regulatory framework since 2020 to include maternity, adoption, family leave, breastfeeding, menstrual health, special registration rules and support for national-team players and their families, while in England the FA and the PFA agreed improved maternity, illness and long-term incapacity provisions for players in the Women’s Super League and the Women’s Championship. In rugby, the RFU and the RPA approved in 2023 a policy for England women internationals that includes 26 weeks of fully paid maternity leave, the option to move into safe alternative duties during pregnancy, a minimum 12-month contract extension if renegotiation takes place during that period, and travel and accommodation cover for the baby and a companion during camps and competitions.

The same pattern appears in other settings, with measures that are more practical than medical. AC Milan announced in 2024 a policy guaranteeing an automatic one-year contract renewal on the same terms if a pregnancy coincides with the final season of a player’s deal, alongside childcare assistance and travel costs for the child and a companion. In Australia, Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers’ Association introduced up to 12 months of paid parental leave, contract extensions for players taking leave, and coverage of flights and accommodation for the child and caregiver when returning to competition. The shared logic in all these cases is still not comprehensive protection of women’s health, but a clearer safeguard for employment, career continuity and the return to elite performance.

More support, but uneven

That development also extends to the WNBA and the WNBPA, which agreed in 2020 on a collective bargaining deal that included full salary during maternity leave, an annual childcare stipend of $5,000, two-bedroom apartments for players with children, nursing spaces, and up to $60,000 in reimbursement for adoption, surrogacy, oocyte cryopreservation or fertility treatment. These are measures players have also pushed to strengthen in the new agreement for 2026. In tennis, the WTA added in 2025 a ranking protection rule for players undergoing fertility preservation procedures, such as egg or embryo freezing, expanding an earlier package of family and maternity support.

Even so, the expansion of measures has not removed the underlying inequality between disciplines or created a common standard. The guide launched by FIFPRO in 2024 on pregnancy and postpartum return to play emerged precisely from that lack of shared knowledge in professional football and from the variation in how clubs support players during pregnancy and the post-birth period. The British Journal of Sports Medicine describes something similar at international level: among federations with identified policies, the most common support remains the freezing of rankings, points or quotas, while broader forms of support are far less common.

The unfinished business

That is where the new insurance front becomes more significant. The package being driven in the United Kingdom focuses on pregnancy, contraception, menopause, Red-S and other conditions that disproportionately affect female athletes, an agenda that is far less developed than maternity or contractual protection. At the same time, the European project Active and Equal, backed by the Council of Europe and the European Union, was launched in 2026 with the aim of placing women’s health at the centre of sport, producing the first pan-European mapping of physiological, psychological and social barriers, and breaking the silence around issues such as menstruation and menopause.

That contrast also appears in the gaps identified by the academic literature. The British Journal of Sports Medicine review found seven of the eight major possible types of support, but identified no specific childcare policies among the international federations analysed. It also noted that only two organisations, UCI and FIFA, provided for financial compensation during time away from competition, while FIFA was the only one in that group with an explicit provision on breastfeeding spaces. The same study warns that many current frameworks still leave doctors, coaches and athletes themselves carrying the burden of decision-making in the absence of broader and more consistent guidance.