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Three years after helping former West Coast Eagles player Patrick Bines secure a $500,000 insurance payout for a career-ending injury, OSE Insurance founder Adriana Oreskov has continued to build momentum in a niche market, now representing more than 200 clients across the AFL and NRL.
While juggling her MBA and having just left a financial advisory role, Oreskov was invited by the AFL to Perth to speak with players and managers about insurance claims following her successful work securing Bines' payout. The experience revealed a major gap in support for injured athletes - and planted the seed for what would become OSE Insurance.
Clients she has taken under her wing include former Sydney Swans player Paddy McCartin, ex-Western Bulldogs and Brisbane Lions player Marcus Adams and previous Gold Coast Suns player Kade Kolodjashnij.
In the past year, the firm has expanded its focus to include NRL players, and in the last six months, Oreskov and her team have also begun advising executive specialists such as surgeons, doctors and lawyers.
Speaking with Business News Australia, Oreskov said her company - soon to be renamed OSE Advisory to better reflect its offering - was built on a desire to support people who had felt like they were out of options.
“It came from a place of wanting to help someone to then identifying this massive problem and actually changing how players now look at insurance, because up until then they all had automatic insurance in their Super, but no one knew they could have a claim,” she said.
“I started to realise: Hold on, I have a skill set here. There's a real need in the Australian sporting market.”
“If you get injured and you can't get another contract, what are you going to do? Where are you going to go? The business has now morphed – we work with the AFL, the NRL, the Players Association, the managers.”
Based in Melbourne, OSE Insurance operates across two main areas: selling policies and handling athlete claims. The latter now drives most of the company’s revenue, but also demands the most time and attention.
Beyond professional athletes, Oreskov is also developing tools for grassroots players, aiming to provide coverage for school-level AFL participants who traditionally fall outside professional insurance frameworks.
The majority of clients, around 70 percent, are based in Victoria, with the firm also seeing growing interest from others based in NSW, Queensland, and WA.
Oreskov, who has more than a decade of experience as a specialist advisor and medical claims expert, has seen many of her clients endure ‘silent’ symptoms that impact their day-to-day lives.
“You look at them, and they look healthy. They look fine, right? The symptoms are silent - so sensitivity to light, sensitivity to sound, ringing in the ears, a lot of them get constant headaches,” she said.
“I've got one guy that's had 38 concussions. He'll ring me for an update, and then two days later ring me again because he forgot that he called me two days ago.”
“I would like to see some reform on how the sporting codes tackle protection for athletes…I think more needs to be done, so I'm continuing to drive that need.”
When asked about what advice she would give other aspiring entrepreneurs, Oreskov made one thing very clear: to avoid hesitating.
“Don't sit there thinking about it. Just go and do it. When I had to go to Perth, I didn't even think about it. I was on the next plane. I didn't even give myself time to process what was happening,” she said.
“When you take a risk that big and you're a young mom and you have kids and a mortgage, you have to survive. You're just going to do what you need to do.
“Just dive straight in…if you want to learn how to swim, just have someone throw you in the deep end to figure it out. I didn't care about everything being perfect. It was about why I’m doing it.”
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