Insurance for snowsports
Hi, boring topic but hopefully we all think about insurance cover when we go to the snow and hope I can pick someone’s brains on this. I usually rely on policies I get with my credit cards but there are so many exclusions to what they cover you for. The one big exclusion I see is off piste riding, whereby they don’t cover you if you are off the designated piste, so even if you go a bit off to the side and happen to have an accident, you are not covered as are off piste. A mate of mine experienced this in the US last winter and he is still scrambling to collect from them - good luck I say.
Wondering if anyone has seen or used a good one policy that will cover for this or is a bit more snowboarder friendly?
Check out snowinsurance.com.au
I have used World Nomads a few times before and have found them to be really good and excellent value. snowinsurance.com.au is part of the Nomads Group, which is backed by Allianz.
tksvm…
Hi, boring topic but hopefully we all think about insurance cover when we go to the snow and hope I can pick someone’s brains on this. I usually rely on policies I get with my credit cards but there are so many exclusions to what they cover you for. The one big exclusion I see is off piste riding, whereby they don’t cover you if you are off the designated piste, so even if you go a bit off to the side and happen to have an accident, you are not covered as are off piste. A mate of mine experienced this in the US last winter and he is still scrambling to collect from them - good luck I say.
Wondering if anyone has seen or used a good one policy that will cover for this or is a bit more snowboarder friendly?
Yeah had that happen to a friend a couple of years ago, good luck to your mate though
check out NRMA insurance i got a good deal there last year, they paid my $2500 claim (after a park fall) within a week it was so easy.
tks all…
Pow Wow - as always, the devil is in the details. I know it will sound boring but the only way to be truly sure of your coverage is to read the accompanying PDS. Like rider26 I have used snowinsurance.com.au as they DO cover off-piste (but not heli skiing).
Credit card insurance is pretty vague for snowsports. Basically if there is anything open to interpretation I would give it a miss or ring up the insurance company and get them to confirm any queries you have. Even better, get your answers in writing or confirm tyour conversation is being recorded and saved so if you ever have to make a claim you have written/verbal recorded proof.
Having worked on a number of insurance projects I have become very familiar with PDS documents. If an insurance company can get away with not paying you because you misread the PDS, they will.
thanks kort. agree on devilish detail and i love all the caveats they put in there, so you know it will not be an easy claim, God forbid you need one. have gone snow insurance as they are more specific to what we are doing, and i can live with their detail.
ok so as pow pow said god forbid i need it but i too wanna make sure I’m covered when i travel to NZ.
Thing is I wanna make sure I’m covered for Heli-Boarding and my gear is covered for during travel. So is there anyone who will cover for boarding on mountain and via Heli ??
You might find it hard getting covered for the backcountry. I just checked snowinsurance.com.au and they won’t cover backcountry.
http://www.snowinsurance.com.au/easy-guide-to-snow-insurance/whats-not-covered.html
Please let me know if you find an insurance policy which covers backcountry travel.
I’m in the same position - would really like some insurance that covers off-piste but it seems to be impossible to find.
For one reason or another I was briefly checking out the snowinsurance.com.au one, and noted that their description of “off piste” was a little ambiguous and indicated cover was excluded for out-of-bounds rather then ungroomed terrain within a resort. Maybe the fine print clarifies this. I assume that those of you after off-piste cover are probably talking about back country terrain? Definition of “piste” is probably something worth checking.
Just thought I’d bump this back up since I’m just starting to look around for my insurance now.
Jeremy, did you end up finding someone who would cover back country/off piste riding? curious because I’m obviously planning on hitting up khybers and million dollar ridge again and would like to be covered in the event of something going wrong out there.
Also how does cat/heli boarding work with travel insurance? Anyone come across this before?
I had insurance when I went to NZ and I did go heli boarding, with that said, now that you mention it I have no idea if we were covered while on the heli trip, probably not by the sounds of it.
Had a squiz through the PDS of the insurance that I had, medically it looks like I was covered, equipment wise I was not. Have a squiz at this link to the PDS and have a read through and see if you see it different. Page 13 is the part where it talks about heli and off piste.
http://www.travelinsurancedirect.com.au/wording/TIDAUS_PRIMARY_PDS_0408.pdf
Just bumping this up again.. anyone else got any info on how cat/heli works?
I think it’s something you have to speak to each individual insurance provider about. Also I would speak to the cat/heli operator to make sure they have insurance for you, it could be covered in the price. Quiz them on it and make sure you know your coverage. Sorry I don’t have any further info.