Hacker News Reader

Comment by dbetteridge | Hacker News Reader

Why not just require an appropriate level of travel insurance OR a deposit?

If the problem is recovery + funeral expenses

I think the Mayor also wants to limit the number of climbers. A 10-20euros private insurance would not be an effective deterrent, but having to put down 15k certainly is.

I don't think there is 10-20euros travel insurance one can buy that does not exclude mountain climbing or any activity that requires specialistic gear.

Google and quite online quote tells me that I can get a insurance that covers mountaineering to 6,000m (that's very serious mountaineering...), climbing, paragliding, skydiving, etc. for one week throughout Europe and Morocco with 5 million pounds medical cover for £100.

Still a massive difference and deterrence level compared to putting down 15k euros.

You can get top-up insurance for loads of sports [1] if you want cover for "Mountain Unicycling - Competition" or "Jousting" or "Praying Mantis Training"

Of course, there are some things they won't cover - if you're skydiving you have to either be qualified, or undergoing instruction. And it might be a bit expensive - if you're doing scrambling at 7000m in nepal, it'll cost you £150 or so.

[1] https://www.sportscoverdirect.com/activity-topup-insurance/

Year long insurance for climbing is not all that expensive in EU. I know quite a few people who have it.

That is nice to know I am mostly into "off the shelf travel insurance" even 150euro if going into the mountains for me still would be worth it.

Definitely look for it, you can buy it also for much shorter periods if you know you are going to mountains. In some countries, you can buy it for a day via SMS.

Insurance at that price level doesn't cover something like Mont Blanc.

There is no insurance company that will insure you on doing that. Unless I don't know something - for which I would be glad to hear back that I am wrong.

Any travel insurance I have seen always excluded all kinds of sports which is also mountain climbing. They exclude everything that requires specialistic gear.

I also work in insurance industry as a software dev - nothing that I have seen would let insure someone who would go under-prepared. One could fill in form that he goes fully prepared but once lied insurance company won't pay anything.

Basically they will sell you insurance if you are fully prepared and basically you don't have any chance of claiming insurance.

Eh? Winter sports cover is a normal travel insurance add on.

> Winter sports

Cliimbing to the top of the highest mountain in the EU will probably not count as "winter sports", but as extreme sports. Winter sports will cover skiing and alike, though.

We are arguing about the definition of extreme sports, but for my travel insurance for skiing and kitesurfing I need the "extreme sports" addon. The point is, "extreme sports" depend on the insurer.

Yes which require specialist gear.

There is insurance for exactly that and quite affordable actually.

> There is no insurance company that will insure you on doing that. Unless I don't know something - for which I would be glad to hear back that I am wrong.

There's loads of specific insurance for these sorts of activities. You won't find it covered by most regular providers but there are oodles of companies out there that cover most extreme sports activities.

A quick google found this for example: https://www.snowcard.co.uk/mountaineering-insurance

But if you're the sort of person to go up a serious mountain in flip-flops you're probably not thinking about insurance anyway!

Global Rescue comes to mind, I used to have a $100k evacuation policy with them thanks to some of my Mountaineering club affiliations.

> There is no insurance company that will insure you on doing that. Unless I don't know something

You can find an insurer for everything. You disclose to them what you want to do and they set a price. It is up to you then to figure out if it's worth paying for it or not.

There are a number of rescue and related insurance options for climbers, either through affiliation with professional organizations (eg: AMGA) or privately as a perk of clubs/public organizations (American Alpine Club membership tier that includes rescue and insurance packages). These are meant to cover the costs of being helicoptered off the side of a mountain and some associated medical bills.

Not true at all. I've done work for insurance companies in the past as well. While it's true most of them will not diverge from their standard contracts, some are very open to clients suggesting 'custom' insurance no matter how obscure the clauses. The only caveat of course being that it will cost you substantial amounts.

> I also work in insurance industry as a software dev - nothing that I have seen would let insure someone who would go under-prepared. One could fill in form that he goes fully prepared but once lied insurance company won't pay anything.

If you break the terms of the contracts you won't get covered of course. Same as with car insurance where you won't get coverage if you were DUI.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com