Separate travel insurance just for skiing risks

A snowHead

Is there any company that will cover just the risks that a specific to skiing, so this could be bought as an extra policy by someone who already had travel insurance without winter sports cover?

I'm aware of Carre Neige and Austrian Alpine Club, but they only cover small levels of medical costs resulting from a medical problem that arises when skiing. I want cover for the higher costs that might be incurred if I needed a lengthy hospital stay (heaven forbid).

A snowHead

I've used Snowcard a couple of times, has varying levels of cover depending on your needs.

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

I get where you are coming from. Having bought belt and braces insurance for skiing to include touring without a guide in Europe, I found myself making a claim which-as a fall on piste-would have been covered by policies offered with 2 my bank accounts. I may yet have another policy for worldwide travel. Made the claim in January to the main ski policy (with Carre Neige paying for the blood wagon). No payout yet!

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@DaveyGTi, I was about to suggest the same. It may not be exactly what the OP wants - but as you say, you can dial back certain elements of the coverage.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@koru, A tesco travel policy inc single-trip ski cover costs c. £20 with £1m of medical cover

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@Perty, I'm struggling to follow all that!

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After all it is free

@Layne, ha! It gets worse.
Accident 3rd Dec. Called the Snowcard helpline and was given details and a claim number and referred to a claims handling company.
They told me on 28th Dec they weren’t the right claims handler for the insurer Puzzled

So, I went back to the policy and clicked on the link in the email from Snowcard confirming the policy and how to claim.
Hurrah…Allianz popped up and I put in all the info, clicked and they confirmed I held a policy with them.

Today I get this email. I think it’s because I hold a Revolut premium account…but I made the claim on my Snowcard annual ski insurance policy…(Though now I come to think of it, I filled in my details online and Allianz checked if I held a policy…maybe the Snowcard one didn’t pop up..it’s not like they asked me to quote the policy number…some “clever” geek obviously thought that wasn’t necessary at the start of the claims process..)
It really makes me wonder why I bother..which I guess is what the insurers hope as well…
Read this gobbledegook and weep..,

“Thank you for your email.
As your claim incident date is after 15/06/2023, Allianz are no longer your travel insurance provider, and we are no longer able to deal with your queries.
If you signed up to a Premium/Metal/Ultra account on 13 November 2023 or later, your insurance provider is Chubb.
Also, if your plan is renewed between 13 November 2023 and 12 December 2033 your insurance provider is Chubb from your plan renewal date.
To make a claim, tap 'Lifestyle' in the bottom menu → 'Insure' → 'Travel' → select a type → 'Get Help'.
If you signed up to a Premium/Metal/Ultra account before 13 November 2023, and your claim happened between 13 November 2023 and 12 December, your insurance provider is Cover Genius. Please contact Chubb for claims on or after 13 December 2023.
If you signed up to a Premium/Metal/Ultra account before 16 May 2023, and your claim happened on 15 June 2023 or later, your insurance provider is Cover Genius.
If you signed up to a Premium/Metal/Ultra account on 16 May 2023 or later, your insurance provider is Cover Genius.
To make a claim, go to XCover.com. To activate your XCover account, create a password using the XCover link in the 'Travel Insurance' → 'Get Help' section. Your XCover account is linked to the email associated with your Revolut account. You can access XCover in-app or by visiting the website. If you have any issues signing in to your XCover account, please use this contact form XCover.com”

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See edited version above. To make a claim with Allianz, rather than phone, you can go online upload your personal details and documents in support, then they check if you hold a policy with them. As I recall, at no point was I required to enter the insurance company or policy details. They just confirmed did. Maybe one was Revolut. Genius!
Think I’ll try the old fashioned way again and try to speak to a human..

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@Perty, looks like your bank have not managed the interface very well! But you remain insured. And should take it up with your bank about how hard they have chosen to make it for you.

On the OP question it is cheap and easy to get a one-off policy for skiing if your normal travel insurance does not cover it. A normal internet search will sort you out.

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@zikomo, ha! I’m already taking it up with Snowcard and plan on speaking to someone Allianz. Anyone who has tried to talk to a human on a Revolut helpline knows hell will freeze over before you ever get a real person on the phone. And, given I didn’t intend to make the claim through the Revolut policy but was simply obliged to inform Allianz I held other policies (as we inevitably all do, usually as a bolt on to a bank account) I’m going to try and avoid heading down another insurance company’s rabbit hole. I purchased a dedicated ski policy and am hoping to claim against that. It’s a little over £500..so far I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time trying to recover what might be seen as a small claim. V frustrating!

@Perty, one of the things I cottoned on to a while back is often (probably more often than not) the claims company is a different organisation to the company you bought the policy off. And it's that company that you really need to know about.

You know it makes sense.

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

As I understand it (which is no doubt imperfectly) a GHIC entitles you to the same treatment as a local person would get in the country concerned. No private clinics (and most ski resort clinics ARE private). Also, in many countries people do pay a contribution to treatment in government hospitals, often covered by their own "mutual".

Given my imperfect understanding I will generally have "belt and braces" insurance. The problems which @Perty (who I think is an experienced lawyer) is having, are instructive. Even a switched on, well, person with access to good communications (i.e not in a hospital bed unconscious and/or in traction) can still have a struggle.

Given the mind-blowing cost of skiing, the additional cost of insurance and risk of having made some redundant payments is hardly worth thinking about, compared to the risks of being under-insured.

On the other hand, it's never financially worth paying for insurance for risks you can afford to cover yourself. I wouldn't bother insuring baggage, skis, travel money, delayed departure, my microwave oven, etc. Insurance companies only exist to make money and they do their sums carefully.

Third party insurance is of course vital (and sometimes legally required). The risk of having to pay out millions is very, very, small, and so, consequently, is the cost of the premium.

A snowHead

A snowHead

@Chuckles3, CN covers repatriation

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

I'm pretty sure AAC covers it too.

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CARRE NEIGE HAS AN OVERALL COVER LIMIT OF 50,000 EUROS WHICH MIGHT NOT COVER BIG MEDICAL CATASTROPHES

Sorry for shouting, but people keep overlooking this, though it's been mentioned often enough.

It's a "nice to have" for the immediate in-resort requirements but I wouldn't rely on it instead of a fully specc'd UK based policy.

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Sorry I seem to have hijacked this thread!

Quick update-I emailed Snowcard last night and have since been copied into an email sent my them to a named person Allianz pointing out that I had valid cover through them at the time and therefore the email about the Revolut card doesn't make sense. Nice to know that there is a human involved.

My experience thus far suggests the following:
1. EHIC/GHIC isn't much use in a ski resort-they have private clinics and want to be paid up front. I'm not sure if that is a change post Brexit. I guess if I got pneumonia or ended up in a French health system hospital it might be different
2.Carre Neige-was fine for the exorbitant fees of the blood wagon and "ambulance" from piste side to medical centre. €584. Some might say it's a bit of a money making thing. Contrary to how it worked in the old days-where, to the best of my recollection-you waved your CN receipt at the piste patrol and they didn't bill you, you now get a bill and have to make the claim to CN to pay it. That worked fine, but then said apply via the NHS for repayment of the medical bills via the EHIC/GHIC scheme. Frankly the bureaucratic nightmare that was the UK govt website for that, meant I decided to claim on my insurance.
3. The ski/extreme sport specific insurers are now agents for the bigger insurance companies so I'm not sure how different the likes of MPI and Snowcard really are from each other once you get under the surface.

To be continued... Very Happy

Edit-Snowcard have confirmed that they have had a response from Allianz "Apparently there was no policy information for your Snowcard certificate attaching to the claims submission which caused the decline. The claim has now been reopened".

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I think when most of us delve into the nuts and bolts of certain policies, we're probably covered several times for things without realising. E.g I have health are insurance with AXA through work. It doesn't cover any meaningful skiing or travelling risks, but it does cover me for repatriation. I also have travel insurance with ski cover which also covers it, and in France I usually pay the few quid for CN too.

As alluded to above, that's kind of the point with some insurance, if it was perfectly tailored then the numbers don't stack up as well for them so it's better to muddy the water a bit.

After all it is free

I tried to search for exactly the same as you are and could not find it - I have an annual policy with Staysure but felt their cover was totally inadequate when it came to winter sports.
I have now taken out another annual policy which includes most of the standard cover that Staysure offer but with more specialised ski cover - eg. skiing off piste without a guide etc.
If I had just been skiing in Europe (we have EHIC cards) I would not have been so concerned but as we are skiing USA I felt additional ski cover was a sensible move.
And yes - I do realise for most things I have double cover!

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Carré Neige is pretty cheap insurance - it would be unrealistic to expect it to cover everything which a gold-plated travel policy would. Maybe they've changed the rules, @Perty. When I was carted off I didn't pay anything upfront.

Thanks everyone.

Just to respond to a few points:

The reason for my post is that I want an annual policy and I need it to cover skiing and non skiing, and I need cover for medical conditions. Most policies want ridiculous premiums for pre existing conditions. There are ones that don't, but they want ridiculous premiums for winter sports cover, so I've been wondering about getting the two aspects covered separately.

AAC seems to have a limit of euros 10k on medical costs. That isn't peanuts, but clearly a bad ski accident could give rise to costs more than that. (There's a guy down the road who is in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, after a skiing accident. It took months until he could even fly back to the UK. I'm guessing that his medical costs were into the millions.)

As others have said, GHIC does not cover private health care.

It is helpful to know that Carré Neige includes medical costs in their overall £50k claims limit. That's a lot more than AAC, but still not enough for all potential catastrophes. Furthermore, the CN medical cover only applies to costs incurred in France and I tend to ski in Italy and Austria, so CN itself is not an option.

Italian resorts seem to offer Snowcare as the daily add on to the ski pass, but the medical cover is a paltry eur500.

Snowcard seems to be the sort of thing I was envisaging, where you can tailor to only include cover for risks that are not covered under a general policy. Unfortunately, they are pretty pricey. £87 for me and my spouse, for a week, but they might be an option.

However, at that price I could, as some have pointed out, just buy two policies, one to be the best cover for medical conditions, the other bought just with winter sports in mind. If the latter is only £20 per person, that might be cheaper than Snowcard, as long as the winter sports cover doesn't have silly restrictions. The problem is that some claims might be covered by both policies, in which case I'd have to claim to both and leave it to them to split it, which I imagine is a major PITA.

You know it makes sense.

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

@Layne, @Origen, I didn't have to pay for the blood wagon up front, but was then presented with a bill and I has to make a claim with the Carre neige insurance company. They then paid piste security directly. Back in the day, my understanding was that the punter with CN just showed their policy to piste patrol and that was it-no bill from piste patrol to the punter, and piste patrol themselves then have sought payment under the CN. Am I wrong about that?

Anyway, back to the issue of getting separate insurance for skiing..I can't offer any ideas for @koru, sorry!

A snowHead

A snowHead

But they might just crop up when you are away skiing? Perhaps having lunch at the top of a mountain? Or asleep after a day out on the slopes. Or an insurance company might argue that they contributed to a skiing accident, or that skiing exacerbated a PEMC. If you are quite sure none of the PEMCs would cause a problem when you were away, why bother with a policy at all?

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

@koru, certainly in Europe, policies like Carte Neige, Carré Neige, AAC etc are designed to cover the costs that the state health care system doesn't and maybe refund costs of lift passes. Hence the low levels of cover. I have a general travel policy with Nationwide Flexplus which also includes winter sports, hubby has an existing medical condition covered for a small additional fee. I don't ski off-piste without a guide, hubby may do so, so we have an AAC policy for him. I used to use MPI and remove their cancellation cover and personal possessions cover from the policy as the first would be covered by NW and the second is covered by my home insurance. My hubby and I have both had surgery in France, hubby following a skiing accident and myself for an appendix. Our total healthcare expenses were very small, as we used EHIC and anything we needed to pay was covered by our insurances.

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In the scheme of things the cost of insurance is a minor part of the cost of a winter sports holiday. Why have multiple policies that cover a small part of the likely costs of something that may go wrong. Every insurance claim will ask if there is another policy in place that cover the risks involved. The larger the claim the more likely it is that all of the companies involved will do some digging and invalidate part of the claim because it is covered elsewhere. Just buy the correct policy for the risks involved, unless you are able to cover the cost of all risks yourself.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Snowcard itself advises you to get separate cover for any PEMCs which they won't cover under their health declaration (which can be annoyingly restrictive sometimes).
Never worked out how to do that: which is a real pain, as their cover is much better than the winter sports cover on another policy primarily chosen because of the PEMCs.

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@koru, I have done just this. I have my own holiday insurance (without ski cover) which covers my medical conditions. The family has an annual policy with MPI which covers skiing. I am covered on it but not for any pre existing conditions. I also take out carre neige for everyone and following an accident at Christmas, I can also confirm that transport off the mountain needed to be paid for and claimed back. I was also trying to claim back medical expenses (brace and crutches), but as @Perty explained, it doesn’t seem to cover this.

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@Hells Bells, the section of the Carre Neige policy documents on medical expenses says that to benefit from the cover:
"you must have a primary or supplementary health care organisation that can refund partly your medical expenses incurred during your stay in the resort or that can furnish you a certificate of refusal to reimburse these expenses if necessary (in English or French only).
My reading of this is that UK-based skiers need to have either a GHIC or insurance policy to cover part of the cost, which aligns with your understanding.

After all it is free

@Chris_n, I know that insurance is becoming a not insignificant sum for my dad. Definitely at a level I wouldn't consider as minor.

I don’t think the insurance situation is easy at all and suspect others feel similarly given the interest in threads like this . It’s always sobering to hear of the awful things that can happen in a skiing holiday and the last thing anyone should have to worry about is a huge bill for medical care . In addition , a lot of policies have relatively short time limits so for those of us who have been lucky enough to retire and spend a lot of time in the alps , that’s a problem . The AAC covers repatriation and rescue . Their medical expenses cover is limited to 10,000 euros - but if this was in combination with a GHIC card would this suffice for medical costs whilst in (say ) France ? The ghic card after all should put you in the position of what a local resident would pay . I don’t know though what a local would pay if they received a serious injury and were in hospital for a long time (I’m thinking of the period prior to repatriation in the case of a British person ). I’ve been trying to at what a local would pay - it does look complicated - certainly 20 euros per day for food etc but I’m not sure re the rest . Does anyone have a clearer idea ? Would 10,000 euros cover it ? I’m hoping it would as you don’t hear of French nationals being bankrupted by huge medical costs but I’m hoping there is a snowhead reading this with a more informed view .

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@boulevardier, I've spent 3 days in hospital in Austria after a ski fall having my skull rebuilt. I did not need a rescue, so the costs were medical only, all in the main state Klinik. I am registered within the healthcare system, so my only costs were the bed charges, which is about €15/day – I think I paid about €55 in total. Anything from the pharmacy when you leave the Klinik is subject to the local prescription charge, which is about €6/item.

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Separate travel insurance just for skiing risks

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