This is the reason the RTRS now includes accidental injury cover through Flip Group Active as part of the entry fee. The decision felt obvious.
"When I decided to go with Flip, I didn't really put my race director hat on. I put myself in the runners' shoes, and it just felt like a no-brainer."
- Mat Doré, Event Director, Riverina Trail Running Series
About the Riverina Trail Running Series
RTRS is a five-race winter series set across different pockets of the Albury-Wodonga region, running from April to August each year. Each race has a short and long course option, so it suits everyone from first-time trail runners to people chasing a serious challenge.
Mat runs the series through Dawn League, a grassroots running community based on the border of New South Wales and Victoria that started as a Wednesday morning run club five years ago and has grown to over 130 members.
Riverina Trail Running Series is a local, community-driven series. There’s no event management team. Mat runs his events alongside a full-time job, because he genuinely loves the sport and community.
How Mat found Flip Group Active
Mat stumbled across Flip on social media, and when he was thinking about partners for this year's series, he thought Flip was something worth exploring.
He’d never known a product like Flip existed before, and he immediately understood the value. As a runner who goes out on technical trails, the idea of entering a race knowing you have cover for sprains, fractures and other specified injuries if something goes wrong felt genuinely appealing. He could also see it would resonate with his community, many of whom would not have come across it before.
"Insurance like this is quite new within the trail running community," he said. "I think it's something that, probably like me, they wouldn't even know was a thing."
Why do trail runners need accidental injury insurance?
Mat is an exercise scientist as well as a race director, so he has a realistic view of what can happen on technical terrain. Sprained ankles are the most common injury he sees, but he has also witnessed broken tibias and femurs over the years.
He’s been on the wrong end of an injury himself. A bad ankle sprain early in his running life left him in a moon boot for eight weeks, largely because he walked on it for too long before getting it seen to. He couldn’t afford physio at the time and hoped it would settle down on its own. It did not. By the time he finally went, the damage was worse than it needed to be.
"Having back up like Flip would just encourage you to take action sooner rather than later," he said. "And then you could return to your sport a bit quicker. Without it, you would just wait and see, which sometimes makes things a lot worse."
That experience sits underneath his thinking about why cover matters. He sees it not just as a safety net for serious injuries, but as something that changes how people respond to smaller ones. When the financial hesitation is removed, people get seen sooner, problems get caught earlier and recovery can be faster.
How Flip Group Active works at running events
Under Flip Group Active, Dawn League is the policy owner. The cover is built into the entry fee, so every eligible participant at a RTRS race is automatically covered for specified accidental injuries during the event, without needing to arrange anything separately.
If something does go wrong and a participant needs to claim, that process runs entirely through the Flip app and is handled directly between Flip and the participant. Mat doesn’t need to do a thing.
For Mat, who runs the series as a side hustle alongside his clinical work, that matters. "Flip being able to take care of that makes my job a whole lot easier," he said.
Dawn League makes sure participants know the cover is there through social media posts and participant newsletters plus QR codes and brochures available at events. They’re aiming to have people downloading the app and getting set up before race day.
Should race directors include insurance for accidental injuries in their entry fees?
Mat thinks every event organiser should consider it. The fee can be wrapped into the entry price, while the value they receive can be significant.
For him, though, it comes back to something simpler than cost. "As a race director, it just shows that you care about your runners. We want to take good care of them."
Join the Riverina Trail Running Series
If you’re new to trail running or looking for something to keep you moving through the winter months, you can find the Riverina Trail Running Series schedule and register on their website. Every participant receives accidental injury cover through Flip Group Active.
Interested in partnering with Flip?
If you organise sporting events and want to know more about how Flip Group Active works, you can read the PDS to understand the product in detail. To talk through the options for your event, get in touch at partnerships@getflip.com.au.
About Mat
Mat Doré is an exercise scientist, run coach and the founder of Dawn League, a running community based in Albury-Wodonga. He organises the Riverina Trail Running Series alongside other local events. When not race directing, Mat is focused on his own training and spending as much time as possible with his wife and two young kids.
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