A few years back it was seemingly impossible to find an insurance that would cover adventure sports. Not even scuba diving. Thankfully, things are changing and there are various companies out there now that cover even ‘extreme sports’, such as skydiving.
In preparation for a quick dash to the USA, to check out Skydive Deland in Florida, I went searching for a travel insurance that would not only cover us for the common lost baggage, flight cancellation and medical emergencies, but also for any incidents in relation to skydiving.
Dropzone.com provided some good discussion forums that led me to identify various options (go to dropzone.com > forums > search: insurance). UK residents, in particular, seem to have a variety of service providers available to them these days. As neither of us is a UK resident though, I identified BUPA Global‘s single trip travel insurance and the Worldnomads Explorer insurance as our best options. Depending on your country of residence, Worldnomads will source your insurance through different providers – as we are UAE residents, the Explorer insurance would be provided to us through BUPA Global anyway. After doing some reading and contacting both BUPA and Worldnomads, I decided to buy the policy through Worldnomads – their offer is slightly cheaper than buying through BUPA directly, as they charge an excess for each claim, and they also included some items in the Explorer plan that BUPA’s own product lacked (e.g. car rental insurance).
I found both companies to be equally helpful via phone and email and I read quite a few reviews about them online. Although Worldnomads seemed to have numerous bad reviews, a lot of these seemed to be based on issues people were having with the service provider of their insurance cover (mainly the Canadian service provider), or consisted of complaints that Worldnomads was not reimbursing them for items that weren’t actually covered in their policy. So here’s to hoping we won’t ever have to make use of it 🙂
Note: BUPA Global is also recommended for visiting skydivers @Skydive Dubai.
During your search for insurance, consider the following:
- Residency requirements – Before spending hours reading up on a policy, check if it is actually available to your country of residence… (been there, done that).
- Read the whole policy including the small print – Know what is covered and what not, what you’d need to provide to make a claim, and what your excess payment would be per claim.
- Check for limitations and exclusions – If the policy states it covers skydiving, make sure it doesn’t only refer to tandem or coached skydiving; some policies may also have a limit on jump numbers.
- Document everything incase you need to claim – Have a record of the belongings you are traveling with. Keep all essential documents for a claim: receipts, photos, police reports, medical reports, etc.
- Is the USA covered? Medical treatment in the USA is very expensive and some policies do not cover travel to the USA.
- Hobby, profession or competition? With regarding to sports, some policies differentiate between a hobby, professional and competitive sport. Make sure your activity is covered.
Other options: See links below for other options that I came across – they didn’t seem suitable for us, and I didn’t do much background reading about their policies, but the links might still be helpful in your search:
- Patriot Adventure Travel Medical Insurance
- Adventure Sports Insurance
- Skycover
- Holiday Safe
- Airports Insurance Bureau
- Harrison Beaumont Insurance
Blue skies.
Living in a Sandcastle 