Mountain Climbing Insurance: What You Need to Know [GUIDE]

April 17, 2024 - Kate

When it comes to travel, we all have different styles. For some people, traveling is all about adventure. They look forward to spending time in the great outdoors doing activities like hiking, cycling, mountaineering, and extreme sports.

Adventure travel is an exciting way to see the world, but there’s greater potential for risks. It’s best to make sure that your travel insurance covers you should anything happen. 

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Jumping Ahead

• Why consider mountain climbing insurance?
• Does travel insurance cover mountain climbing?
• What Benefits to Look for in Mountaineering Insurance
• How to Get Mountain Climbing Insurance

Why consider mountain climbing insurance?

Adrenaline-pumping adventures usually go on without a hitch and are a great way to build memories. However, over 3,000 mountain climbers get hurt each year. Because mountaineering relies so heavily on the forces of nature, you can’t always rely on your own skill (or your guide’s) for safety. Natural disasters and injuries are just a few events comprehensive travel insurance would cover for adventure trips.

“Getting mountain climbing insurance provides peace of mind knowing that if you get hurt, your trip gets delayed or cancelled, or your equipment doesn’t make it to your destination, you won’t have to foot the bill yourself,” says Terry Boynton, co-founder and president of Yonder Travel Insurance.

Does travel insurance cover mountain climbing?

Typically, with standard comprehensive travel insurance policies, the answer is no. However, there are policies out there with “hazardous sports” coverage for adventurous sports like mountaineering –we’ll get to those soon. 

Generally mountain climbing, or mountaineering, means the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, climbing and Rock Climbing up mountains that requires the use of ropes, harnesses, crampons or ice axes, and involves ascending beyond an altitude of 4,500 meters. This definition might vary from provider to provider.

In essence, if you’re climbing an altitude higher than 4,500 meters using technical equipment, you’ll need a specific policy that covers adventure or extreme sports. Most standard travel insurance policies exclude coverage for adventure or extreme sports.

To summarize, if you go mountaineering (or participate in a variety of other “extreme sports”, which we’ll get to later) and get injured, your standard travel insurance medical coverage won’t apply. Hence why we’re discussing the benefits of mountain climbing travel insurance!

What Benefits to Look for in Mountaineering Insurance

The good news is, that you can still get coverage for mountain climbing if you opt for Hazardous Sports Coverage. It’s what we in the biz refer to as a “sports rider”.

This way, your policy covers adventure sports with less restriction. These are some other benefits that are a good idea to have included in your travel insurance:

Medical Expense Coverage

Fingers crossed this doesn’t happen, but if you get in an accident while mountain climbing, you’ll want to make sure your travel insurance policy has medical coverage. If you’re traveling to an international climbing destination it ensures you can get the medical care you need. Plus, it eases the strain of financial hardship of unexpected international medical expenses. 

It’s vital your travel insurance includes a “hazardous sports” add-on or allows you to name your covered sport. This prevents normal medical coverage exclusions that standard comprehensive policies have when participating in adventurous sports. 

“Plus, if you’re climbing in the States, having a travel insurance policy will allow you to bypass paying your health insurance deductible if you get hurt during your climb,” says Boynton.

Trip Interruption Coverage

If you do get hurt while mountain climbing and your injury is minor, you may be able to head to a hospital, get patched up, and head back to the trails. If your injury is more serious or becomes an emergency, you may want to return home after receiving immediate care. Should this occur, you don’t want to pay an arm and a leg (on top of what might have already been an expensive trip) just to travel home early from your trip. 

With a mountaineering insurance policy, you’ll be covered for trip interruption if you have to cut the trip short. In most cases, this means you’ll be reimbursed for many of the prepaid expenses you won’t use on your trip. In addition, the extra costs incurred to switch your plane ticket home could be covered.

“Most of the time, comprehensive travel insurance plans that include trip interruption will also include trip cancellation,” says Boynton. “Trip cancellation insurance could protect your trip investment if you get too sick or injured to take your trip.”

Sport Equipment Rental

If you’re an eager adventurer, it’s probably hard to tone down your excitement for your upcoming climb after arrival. It would really be a downer if the airline sent your checked equipment to the wrong destination.

Not to worry! Many policies offer what’s called “sports equipment rental”. This allows you to continue with your adventures by reimbursing the cost to rent additional equipment until yours shows up.

Emergency Evacuation Benefits

Some reasons climbers might need to get evacuated from your current destination include: 

The very last thing you want to be worrying about in an emergency situation is the bill you’ll have to foot to get out of it, right? 

Evacuation is an important piece of additional insurance coverage to have. This is especially the case when you’re going on an international trip that will be spent mostly outdoors. No matter how well you plan and how much research you do, the weather or political climate can change at any minute. You’ll want to make sure you’re safe if it takes a turn for the worse.

Yonder recommends having at least the following evacuation benefit limits included in your policy:

• Emergency Medical Evacuation: At least $100,000, but opt for higher limits if traveling to remote destinations

• Non-Medical (Weather/Natural Disaster or Political) Evacuation: At least $100,000

Search and Rescue

Needing a search and rescue is highly unlikely, especially if you’re using a guide. However, some adventure travel insurance policies cover costs associated to searching and rescuing you if you get lost, disoriented, or are reported missing. Usually, the benefit only covers a certain amount of days for a search. 

Pro Tip: For the search and rescue to be covered, it would have to be initiated by someone on your behalf to a qualified search and rescue company.

How to Get Mountain Climbing Insurance

Now that you know what to look for, the next step is buying the right policy. Yonder partners with Trawick’s Safe Treker plans for travelers participating in more adventurous sports during their trip. 

These comprehensive travel insurance plans include all the recommended benefits we’ve discussed and more. Plus, you can name your covered sports on the policy, ensuring there won’t be any exclusions for the sole purpose of your trip.

If you need extra help determining if a policy has coverage for hazardous sports, reach out to our team of travel insurance experts.

If you’re looking for more flexible evacuation, travel medical assistance, and travel security coverage, Yonder recommends enhancing your travel insurance with the CAP Tripside Assistance Service plan. This plan offers some areas of coverage that standard travel insurance plans may not:

Mountain climbing isn’t the only extreme sport that requires a little extra travel insurance to make sure you’re fully covered. Here are some of the other activities that typically fall under the same category: 

• Rock Climbing

• Skydiving

• Parachuting

• Hang gliding

• Bungee jumping

• Scuba diving

• Spelunking
  

In conclusion, if your itinerary includes (or even might include!) one of these sports, we highly recommend that you add Hazardous Sports Coverage to your travel insurance policy. Get started by checking out this information for Adventure travel and then get a free quote here.