6 Tips for Buying Adventure Travel Insurance

May 25, 2018

You’ve booked your dream adven­ture hol­i­day — moun­tain bik­ing in the Andes, hik­ing in the Alps or climb­ing in Utah. You’ve been sav­ing your pen­nies, final­ly locked down the dates and start­ed to plan. But, how do you pro­tect your trav­el invest­ment? No mat­ter how expen­sive or extrav­a­gant your adven­ture hol­i­day, you should always pur­chase trav­el insur­ance. Trav­el insur­ance min­i­mizes the finan­cial risks of trav­el­ing. A two-hun­dred dol­lar insur­ance pol­i­cy can end up sav­ing you thou­sands of dol­lars in the event of an acci­dent, delayed bag­gage, theft, poor weath­er or fam­i­ly emergencies.

Most adven­ture tourism com­pa­nies require a non-refund­able deposit and the full trip bal­ance due a cou­ple months pri­or to the trip start date. If any­thing hap­pens lead­ing up to the trip which pre­vents you from attend­ing, hav­ing a com­pre­hen­sive trav­el insur­ance pol­i­cy can save you a lot of mon­ey. In the event of delays or an acci­dent while moun­tain bik­ing or climb­ing, your trav­el insur­ance policy.

1. What to Know

Trav­el insur­ance includes five areas of protection:

• TRIP CANCELLATION AND INTERRUPTION 
• BAGGAGE 
• MEDICAL 
• EVACUATION 
• FLIGHT INSURANCE 

You can usu­al­ly choose to opt out of one area, but we rec­om­mend pur­chas­ing a com­pre­hen­sive trav­el insur­ance pol­i­cy that offers cov­er­age for each area. Once your tirp is booked, you’ll want to pur­chase a pol­i­cy as soon as pos­si­ble so you’re cov­ered from day one. 

2. Watch for Exclusions

When research­ing poli­cies, it’s impor­tant to read through the cov­er­age to ensure there are no exclu­sions. Some trav­el insur­ance com­pa­nies will not insure activ­i­ties such as lift-accessed moun­tain bik­ing, activ­i­ties at high ele­va­tions or sports they con­sid­er ‘extreme’. We rec­om­mend Worlds Nomads or Glob­al Res­cue for adven­ture trav­el and moun­tain bike trips. It’s best to con­tact a rep­re­sen­ta­tive and com­pare dif­fer­ent poli­cies to ensure you pur­chase the best pol­i­cy for your trav­el needs. 

3. Insure Expensive Equipment

Moun­tain bikes aren’t cheap. It’s com­mon for peo­ple to trav­el with $5,000 — $10,000 moun­tain bikes or sport­ing equip­ment. Research poli­cies that offer addi­tion­al bag­gage or sport­ing equip­ment cov­er­age. Although, from our expe­ri­ence trav­el insur­ance com­pa­nies typ­i­cal­ly only offer up to $2,000 worth of cov­er­age for bag­gage. In this case, look into your home insur­ance or ten­ants insur­ance pol­i­cy, it may cov­er per­son­al items while traveling. 

4. Don’t Count on Credit Card Insurance

Many cred­it card com­pa­nies offer basic trav­el insur­ance if you pur­chase your flights or trav­el with that spe­cif­ic card. Don’t fall back on this with­out reach­ing through the cov­er­age. The cov­er­age offered by cred­it card com­pa­nies is usu­al­ly lim­it­ed, either with the num­ber of days you are cov­ered or the types of acitvi­ties  you can par­tic­i­pate in while traveling. 

5. Know the Risks

We’re not wired to focus on the ‘worst-case’ sce­nario but it’s impor­tant to be real­is­tic about adven­ture trav­el. There are risks and you should be proac­tive about pro­tect­ing your­self and your belong­ings.   99% of the time, you’ll enjoy a has­sle-free hol­i­day, but you’ll be hap­py you have pro­tec­tion in the event you’re in the 1%.  Adven­ture tourism usu­al­ly means trav­el­ing off the beat­en path, where access to hos­pi­tals and emer­gency ser­vices is lim­it­ed.  Com­pa­nies that spe­cial­ize in adven­ture trav­el insur­ance such as World Nomads or Glob­al Res­cue offer reas­sur­ance with med­ical evac­u­a­tion cov­er­age back to your home coun­try. Depend­ing on where you’re trav­el­ing you can also increase the amount of med­ical and emer­gency evac­u­a­tion coverage. 

6. What We Recommend

Join­ing us on a moun­tain bike adven­ture or plan­ning your own dream adven­ture hol­i­day?  We strong­ly rec­om­mend insur­ance  poli­cies that cov­er the following: 

• TRIP CANCELLATION UP TO 100% OF YOUR TRIP COST
• EQUIPMENT PROTECTION FOR DELAY, LOSS, THEFT AND DAMAGE (IF TRAVELING WITH YOUR BIKE/EXPENSIVE EQUIPMENT). THIS CAN BE COVERED THROUGH RENTER’S OR HOME INSURANCE. CHECK YOUR POLICY.
• TRIP INTERRUPTION UP TO 100% OF TRIP COST
• MEDICAL EXPENSES UP TO $50,000 (OR MORE)
• EMERGENCY MEDICAL TRANSPORTATION UP TO $1,000,000
• EVACUATION COVERAGE BACK TO YOUR HOME COUNTRY
• COVERAGE THAT INCLUDES MOUNTAIN BIKING AND OTHER ADVENTURE TRAVEL ACTIVITIES