UKH

The BMC ski insurance page states that you must take out cover for a whole trip.

However, I'm only skiing off-piste for 3 days, and the rest of my trip is covered by my standard holiday insurance policy.

Anyone know what the legality is? Am I obliged to take insurance for the whole trip or just enough to cover me for the days it's needed?

Thanks

In reply to andy healey:

It seems fairly clear to me. It's a standard provision in most travel insurance policies. You could always try asking them, but I suspect I know what the answer will be.

Don't be tempted to give them the wrong dates. Insurance contracts rely on what is called "utmost good faith" so if you make an incorrect statement on your application it can invalidate the entire policy.

BMC insurance also covers standard holiday things, so you shouldn't need a separate travel policy.

Depending on where you're going, you might be able to buy insurance by the day when you get there, try Carre Neige for example.

In reply to andy healey:

So you already have (annual ?) travel insurance and simply want additional cover for the activities not covered under your main policy.

In which case I will disagree with the previous poster and say that you don't need it to cover you for your whole trip. I take out such cover with snowcard and exclude stuff such as possessions from the cover, as these are covered elsewhere.

Worth bearing in mind that having multiple policies will complicate matters should you need to make a claim, so it really shouldn't be an issue trying to reduce the overlap.

But for piece of mind you might need to ring up

In reply to andy healey:

Thanks both for the alternative facts

@Howard J - problem with Carre Neige (afaik) is that it doesn't cover you for medical, just getting you off the mountain. So if your existing policy explicitly excludes off-piste...

@Chris, that's exactly my situation.

It's like if I went on a 6 month beach holiday using my work-provided, avoiding risky things insurance policy, then went for one day of climbing and wanted to get insured. I surely wouldn't need to take out 6 months of climbing insurance?

For the record, there's only a tenner difference for this holiday so it's not a biggie, but another time it could be (see example above).

In reply to andy healey:
As an alternative have you looked into AAC membership if you only need rescue/medical cover. I suspect annual membership costs less than a week with the BMC but it may not be quite what you had in mind.

In reply to andy healey:

BMC has no legal obligation to provide you with insurance. Therefore if they or more to the point their underwriters decide that to provide travel and climbing/skiing/adventure sports cover it has to be either from when you leave the country or on an annualized basis then it is up to them to do so. There is no "legality" involved in it. It's purely a commercial decision on their behalf. I suspect if it were possible to just get cover on the days you'd like and use a bog standard travel insurance for the rest of the trip the premiums would likely increase massively to cover the increased cost of coverage. If you're unhappy with this the alternative is to look for options elsewhere. There's very little else to consider.

In reply to Aly:

Thanks Aly

In reply to andy healey:

It's simpler and cheaper to just join the Austrian Alpine club which will provide you with the additional cover you need for a year for a fraction of what the BMC charges plus get you a discount if you use any alpine huts including those in the Pyrenees and other"alpine" areas.