If you’re planning on hitting the slopes on your next holiday, a standard travel insurance policy probably won’t cover you.
You'll need to take out extra cover for winter sports with your policy - when you compare travel insurance with us, we’ll ask you if you need it.
A winter sports holiday is non-stop fun, but skiing or snowboarding isn’t without its risks. You’re much more likely to get injured during a winter sports trip than a holiday spent lounging by the pool, which is why you need extra protection from your travel insurance.
Ski insurance, or winter sports insurance, isn’t actually a type of travel insurance. It’s a policy feature that’s either already included or added on to your travel insurance.
Winter sports are considered to be high-risk activities by insurers, with more chance of you being seriously injured, so the medical aspect of your cover is usually more extensive than standard. It’ll include cover for things like air ambulances - important if you run into trouble in a hard to reach location.
It’ll also offer protection for situations unique to ski trips, like losing or damaging equipment, or piste closures. Because of that, expect travel insurance with winter sports cover to cost a bit more than a run-of-the-mill policy.
Because you’re adding additional cover to a travel insurance policy, you’ll have cover for the standard things like lost and stolen possessions, medical expenses, trip cancellation and repatriation back to the UK.
But you’ll also have cover for:
What’s covered, and how much cover you have, varies between policies. You can find out exactly what cover is available by looking at policy docs - if you’re unsure just give the insurer a call.
Winter travel insurance cover always has exclusions - watch out for these.
Some common exclusions are:
The average premium for a single winter sports policy, without pre-existing medical conditions, between January 2018 and December 2018 was £18.78.[2]
The price of your policy depends on a whole host of factors, like the country you’re visiting, duration of your trip and your age. Compare policies to get the best deal.
Yes, you can. If you’re going skiing with family or friends, you can take out a group policy with winter sports cover. It’ll probably work out cheaper than insuring everyone separately too.
If you’ve got a pre-existing medical condition, you need to let your insurer know about it when you take out cover. If you don’t, you won’t be covered for it if your condition gets worse. You won’t be able to claim back any expenses you have because of it either.
[1]Gocompare.com introduces customers to theidol.com which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Gocompare.com's relationship with theidol.com is limited to that of a business partnership, no common ownership or control rights exist between us. Please note, we cannot be held responsible for the content of external websites and by using the links stated to access these separate websites you will be subject to the terms of use applying to those sites
[2]The average premium for a single winter sports policy, without pre-existing medical conditions, between January 2018 and December 2018 according to data from theidol.com.