Leisure tourism is increasingly linked to sports and adventure. We all have friends or relatives who have gone to another country to go hiking, scuba diving, cycling, skiing… Today we will see how to protect ourselves against possible accidents and whether or not they are covered by travel insurance.
Traveling abroad and how to cover health care expenses
A few weeks ago, we published a specific article on the importance of travel insurance when going abroad.
We were saying how, if we go abroad, especially outside the European Union, we must protect ourselves in case we have an accident or, simply, due to an illness, we have to visit the hospital. Nobody is “free” from a flu or a fall, and Murphy’s Law, if we can avoid it, so much the better.
For prices ranging from 10 € per person, if we cover ourselves, we will avoid scares.
Sports and travel insurance coverage
Despite all the above, we must keep in mind that an insurance policy is a contract and, as such, it is necessary to know the fine print. In this case we would like to talk about sports, since many people are unaware that they are not covered by an insurance policy:
Standard travel insurance excludes (does not cover) accidents arising from a large number of sporting activities.
We are talking about:
- Ski
- Equestrian
- Diving
- … (sometimes even hiking).
However, there are policies that specifically cover these activities. That is why we always ask our clients about the activities to be carried out to ensure that they will not have any problems.
Attention to online travel insurance comparators
The other day, because we like to know how other insurance providers work, we went to do an experiment on a well-known Spanish comparator.
The website is very intuitive and asks you a series of questions before giving you a price. Among the questions is “What is the reason for the trip?”; and we answered “skiing”.
At the end of it all came the prices. Of the options we worked with almost all the companies, so we knew those products inside out. We were surprised that one of those companies did not cover skiing, so we went to see if they had a special product or something like that. That was not the case, but they were offering the same product as we were, in whose general terms and conditions it excludes “winter sports”.
In other words, if we had taken out that travel insurance, we would not have been covered for what we needed, even though we were expressly asked what activity we were going to do. We must pay attention to the small print…
Travel insurance ransom
In this same line that we have been commenting, in addition to the coverage of health care expenses, companies can offer a specific guarantee, called: “search and rescue of the insured”..
It covers the expenses that will be charged to the client, caused by the need for a special service to rescue him from the mountain, from the sea, from a river…
If we do not have this guarantee, we may have to pay up to several thousand euros, since it often involves the use of helicopters, boats, large groups of people…
Again, it is advisable to review your policy, as few policies provide for this coverage.
Registration for sporting events
Running and cycling are booming sports. For this reason, organized sports events have, every year, more and more registrations. It is not uncommon to organize specific trips to other cities or even other countries to participate in a race. This registration is not cheap in many cases.
For this reason, we offer policies that provide coverage for trip cancellation due to physical injury; and that include, among many other guarantees, the reimbursement of the race registration fee.
If you want to have peace of mind when going abroad, take out your travel insurance with us. Avoid unforeseen events and take out your policy under the best conditions.
