Ski/Travel Insurance

A snowHead

I should be cheap after radical hysterectomy. No uterine or ovarian cancer likely. Or miscarriage

A snowHead

@munich_irish, I guess the issue would be a non-ski related hospital stay on a trip length exceeding the 31 days, for example an appendectomy, or a fall on an icy pavement and a broken femur, which might need a change of flight, ambulances or other costs. I don't think AAC would cover for that eventuality as it is for ski-related stuff.

Any illness likely to increase the risks of a claim or hospital admission would increase the premium-cancer, heart disease, lung conditions, stroke, high blood pressure etc. Restless legs are unlikely to lead to one even if severe.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@Hells Bells, Cant answer that one but I believe the insurance covers any sort of sporting or similar activity it is not restricted to "mountain sports". I seem to remember that there used to be an exclusion for cycling but that has gone. The website says with regard to repatriation & medical costs "Valid worldwide during the first eight weeks of any journey abroad, for leisure and occupational accidents as well as illness." . I agree is it not general purpose travel insurance but it is very useful for any sort of active "holidays" without the restrictions that seem to apply to many travel policies. It is really designed for Austrian & German residents who will have different sorts of health insurance than UK residents have but that doesnt mean it is not very useful for some of the issues that regularly pop up here.

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Munich_Irish, thanks for that suggestion. It looks almost perfect for what I want, but unless I am missing something, the one activity on the mountains it does not seem to cover is downhill skiing. Do you think this is just assumed? Its very odd.
I spend much of each winter in Zell am See where I have an apartment, though it is quite ready to accept I actually live in the UK. If it works for you it should work for me. The hospital is covered by my GHIC card. Over the years I have used it a bit including a major op.. The only charges are for the food I have eaten.
I would really like your considered thoughts on the downhill skiing please.
PS Is the Bergrettung much the same?
PPS I think I tried Allianz but I will look back at my notes.

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Have you looked at Barclays? Covers up to age 79 and 31 days - though that can be extended for extra cost. Its £14.50 a month and comes with breakdown cover. It can be cancelled after 6 months. I suppose one of the drawbacks will be the requirement for a current account but might be worth looking into if it gives you what you want cover wise.

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@Retro4, many snowHeads already use AAC, including my husband and kids, so I am fairly certain it does.

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@Retro4, I'm not sure what you are reading but the only exclusions re skiing are doing it professionally or in a competition.

After all it is free

@Hells Bells, For longer ski trips we have used AAC to cover the skiing element, and a seperate long trip policy to cover non- wintersports incidents. We have never needed to claim personally, but have had anecdotal reports of it working okay from elderly members of our climbing club.
We are not yet over 70 but the combination of longer trips, multiple pre-existing conditions, and skiing off piste without a guide ( have even seen policies where Level 3 avvy risk is not covered!), and ski touring has made insurance a nightmare! And when we go on longer cycle tours we have to start all over again AAC don't cover cycling, and cycle touring is excluded from most normal long trip policies!

@Retro4, Bergrettung is pretty much the same and might be as good an option, I had assumed you needed to be a local resident but maybe not. Excerpt from cover details for Alpenverein

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@Origen, I just realised I missed your reply about Nationwide details. Thanks so much, seems a very reasonable premium to me, all things considered. I'll just have to upgrade my current account and take it from there, I think. Not looking forward to explaining what's going on with my left eye to someone dim at Aviva, though, heart issues are simple in comparison.

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Thank you for all the helpful replies.

I am coming to the conclusion that the big issues are probably covered best by Alpenverein. Its a club and they seem to want people (including older ones) to go out in the fresh air and exercise, do stuff. They will rescue you when it does all go wrong. (The British Insurance Industry I suspect would rather you sit in an arm chair, get fat and die!) Alpenverein allows for longer trips, age and are not worrying about if you loose your knickers and toothbrush, or ingrowing toenails. Alpenverein are really positive. If you join after 1/9/24 you are covered until 31/12/25 for, at age 77, £48!!!! (I miss read about the downhill cover. My mistake.)

I have always paid Bergrettung Salzberg something so they will helicopter me off the mountain if necessary. I am trying to ascertain if they have a similar/broad level of insurance coverage but am not confident that is the case.

I have realised that the aquaintance who is the agent of Donau Insurance and insures my ski apartment is also the head of the local mountain rescue, so I have asked him to advise. If I get anything useful back I will report here on that.

Once again thank you so much everyone for your help, Steve.

PS Why Barclays have ANY customers defeats me. My experience is they are plain dishonest and Trustpilot does not make good reading. I would feel more secure if I had a policy with Vlad Putin I think, than being insured through them! Sorry.

Thank you all again, it has been most helpful. Steve.

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Has anyone had experience of claiming jointly on AAC, and any related UK policy.

E.g. the following scenario: (cobbled together from some recent real examples!)

- injury 'offpiste' on a 7 week duration EU trip
- AAC would cover the local necessary medical expenses
- ?? would cover any 'additional' medical expenses (e.g. crutches, air boot, pain relief)
- UK insurer would in theory cover any curtailment (e.g. refund of remaining hotel costs, repatriation).... but in my experience, they would see an 'insured event' occurring outside their policy (e.g. as their policy only covers 2 week trip durations)

or another way - how to combine and effectively claim for different risks (injury/recovery via AAC, and curtailment/luggage etc via separate insurer).

At some point I'll do a write up of my current claims process.... nearly as painful as the injury itself!

I've been reading around the small print in Nationwide/Aviva and it seems almost too good to be true. I didn't realise, for instance, that you get breakdown and mobile phone cover as well with a FlexPlus account, not to mention the fact that the travel insurance appears to give worldwide cover and there is no age restriction. Since I haven't had so much as a face-to-face check-up in more than a year, I saw no reason to declare my aortic valve implant. I was interested, @j b, that you declared a cancer with no issues in the last 12 months - is that because you were/are receiving medication? I just declared the inevitable bp medication and statins, plus my uveitis (for which I take a million drops they didn't ask me about) and got a quote of £110 plus, of course, the FlexPlus charge of £18 per month. Why did I not do this before?! Alternatively, somebody please tell me what I've missed. (I never do as much as 31 days per trip anywhere).

You know it makes sense.

@Hurtle, you’re unlucky not to come across it before, it’s mentioned quite regularly here on insurance questions, and it used to be only £13 a month until a few weeks ago.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@ster, in fairness, in the days when I was insuring with MPI, I did have more stuff to declare and also I was skiing off piste without a guide a bit. But I don't remember reading about the extras offered by Nationwide, especially the worldwide cover and lack of age limit, and their relative reticence in asking health-related questions.

A snowHead

@Hurtle, I've used the mobile phone insurance, the breakdown cover (in Europe) and claimed for my appendix surgery on the travel policy. All without major incident.

A snowHead

@Hells Bells, brilliant. I've got to phone Nationwide to change my Flex to FlexPlus, because they apparently can't change an address online. And I have discovered that they have Battersea Bridge as part of my address. Do they think I live on it or under it? Laughing

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@Hurtle, I've used the Nationwide breakdown insurance successfully in recent years. Once in France (left the lights on car parked in Chambery in freezing cold weather Embarassed

). For reasons I no longer remember the mobile phone insurance proved useless. With health, they seem to have a very formulaic approach which depends entirely on how many prescription meds you take!

Nationwide's banking services have also been very satisfactory, for many years. Streets ahead of the likes of Lloyds.

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@rickboden,

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The "lost luggage" aspect of holiday insurance doesn't bother me at all. I've never even glanced at the level of cover on my Nationwide policy. Nor cancellation. Nor anything but third party cover and emergency/medical.

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I'm going through the annual insurance nightmare. With Nationwide Flexplus now, their new insurers Aviva have this exclusion for loss or damage to skis etc:
" Equipment deliberately left somewhere that is not in an insured person’s full view, with someone they know, or their travel provider"
That rules out all the most likely circumstances for losing skis.
But I will probably go with Nationwide/Aviva because it is very difficult to find any insurer for octogenarian skiers.

After all it is free

Got Columbus direct quote again for this year which includes unguided off-piste as standard.
Aviva slightly cheaper but only guided off piste.
Any other companies doing unguided off-piste cover?

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The British Mountaineering Council may be more expensive than Columbus because they are covering some pretty serious activities and expeditions. The winter sport part of their cover is really a bit of an add on.

As for price. I just looked up a price for an annual policy for my son (who, unlike me, has no health declarations) for Europe upto 5000m and a limit of 45 days per trip and the price came to £260. OK quite a bit but it does cover via ferrata, rock climbing and mountaineering whereas most ski policies don't. At a quarter of the price Columbus must be a non brainer for the value.

However, my friend thinks the BMC is too pricey and prefers to rely on the Austrian Alpine Club and EHIC.

The Post Office Insurance looks pretty reasonable including unguided off piste from memory?
They were certainly more cost effective for insuring my mother post cancer surgery and treatments than some other options at the time.

You know it makes sense.

Thanks to this thread I opened a Nationwide Flex Plus account yesterday. Whilst it doesn't cover all my needs it looks like it will be really useful.

My car rescue policy was due to renew tomorrow for £94 alone. Add the mobile phone cover (which I didn't have before) and the general travel insurance it's well worth the £18 per month = £216 p.a.

In addition I had an old Santander account from when they used to pay decent interest on cash deposits. So I transferred that over with automatic closure of the Santander account and will get a bonus of £175 for that.

So, already it's a saving of £65 for the first year and I get cover that I didn't have before.

Thank you everyone.

Question for those of you who have had this account / cover longer: As far as I can see it says 'The trip limit is 31 days' but there doesn't seem to be anything limiting the total number of days (skiing or other) in a year. Have I read this correctly?

TYVM

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@rickboden, you can take as many trips as you like up to 31 days. You can buy an upgrade for longer trips but not for skiing

A snowHead

A snowHead

Re: BIBA policies.

The easiest way to get a BIBA policy is to use an insurance broker. For many years I used Firth and Scott in Nottingham with everything done over the phone and by email. For clarity - I have no connection to this company, but used them for around 20 years and they were professional when finding the right policy, including covering pre-existing conditions, and efficient on the one occasion when I had to make a claim.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

My current annual policy is due for renewal in February and I will probably upgrade my Nationwide account to Flexplus. The only stumbling block is that they require a return travel booking for the policy to be valid. I'm retired so it's not that important when I return, I travel by car and do not want to pay the significant extra cost of a fully flexible return ferry. . . . .
If using the website doesn't get me an answer, it'll be a branch visit (NW still have quite a few branches!)

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@Nemisis, ah! I have Flexplus and that point never occurred to me. Back to the small print. I have relied on their insurance for years, and rarely had return bookings!! Will check.

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@Nemisis, I'd be amazed if anyone in a branch would know that level of detail. Give the travel policy people a call or email, I've found them responsive

I didn't know that either buy I always have a return booked

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@holidayloverxx, they will probably not have any level of knowledge about the policy (it's a regulatory matter), but they can "phone a friend"!

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I just phoned Aviva. No, it's not true. Provided you're back within 31 days (on the standard policy, you can get upgrades for long trips) you are covered. Phew!

After all it is free

@Origen, good work

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