The British Insurers merry-go round again

[Escher]

Anyone found a British insurer that will give cover for trekking in Nepal for independant trekkers travelling in a group smaller than 3?

Snowcard and the BMC (or at least their shared underwriter Fortis) are only insuring people with guides or in large groups and at the moment don't seem to want to offer a policy with specific exclusions as I managed to arrange 2 years ago.

So it seems it's go with a guide to get insurance or have no insurance at all!

I wonder how many people have insurance with Snowcard or the BMC and are not aware of this? :rolleyes:

[redders]

Hi Folks
When we went to Annapurna Circuit in 2006 ,we tried both Snowcard and BMC
BMC told us it was unsafe to go at all to Nepal !! with a group or otherwise !
would not touch us ,again Snowcard wernt interested .
So contacted our NAtWEST bank regarding travel insurance on our Advantage Gold current account , we were told we were covered for independent travel up to a height of 17500ft ,we reasoned that if we conked out at the very top of Thorung La we could drag ourselves down the 100ft or so !!!
So much for Specialist Insurers ,I was particularly disapointed by the BMC
Try Your Bank we are of to Everest in May on our own so thats what we will do
Cheers Mike

[Spaceman347]

Not again Escher! You must be getting pretty tired of this by now.

You could try IHI, they do a single trip and annual policies. The most important factor being, no exclusions. It's medical cover only so you'd need to back that up with some sort of general travel insurance to cover lost luggage etc (I get general travel insurance 'free' with my credit card).

It's reasonably expensive cover for longer trips (a thing to note is that the annual policy only covers trips up to 30 days in duration - longer trips require top up insurance on a day by day basis for those days exceeding 30) so isn't really any cheaper if you only travel on one trip per year.

either way you'd be looking at 100 quid or so.........

www.ihi.com

[Oli]

/me shakes fist at the abstrads :mad:

I am wondering about booking flights for my Nov-Jan return trip, they'll be available for sale next month and I may get an early bargain. But this "will my insurance be valid" question is a real problem. I am still annoyed at the BMC for being so unsympathetic to the dilemma, I have not renewed my membership. BMC and Snowcard insurance policies are both underwritten by Fortis, if is those know-nothing pen pushers that have imposed this dumb restriction then boo hiss to them. Have they been infiltrated by agents from TAAN?

As long as the Foreign Office don't advise against "all unnecessary travel" then any comprehensive insurance *ought* to be good for any mishaps in Kathmandu and/or Pokhara (etc), its just the assurance of emergency rescue from the mountains that is the devil in the small print. I would think that from a purely financial point of view, the cost of a helicopter evacuation of an AMS victim is less than repatriating someone in a similarly life threatening RTA.

It's the short term political volatility that is the real problem. That and the hoodwinked insurance brokers who don't seem to realise that the politics isn't really the risk.

*sigh*

Thanks for the link Spaceman, nice to see Skype as an opition to discuss the details with .dk Lets hope the Danish have more sense than the British jobsworths.

[Escher]

When I was last in Nepal (with Oli) in March/April 2006 the FCO were advising against all but essential travel to Nepal. Some digging revealed that the real reason Fortis were adding the "only trek with a group and guide" clause was because someone had made an absolutely huge claim for evacuation that apparently wouldn't have been so huge had they had a guide. Maybe someone was trekking without a guide, had a heart attack and it culminated in a very expensive repatriation? I don't know.

The FCO advice includes this "You are strongly advised to use a reputable travel agent and only trek with an experienced guide and in a group" which must please TAAN greatly! This is interpretted by the insurers quite literally - no cover without a guide. A very broad brush to cover any and all treks and any and all trekkers. And I suspect many people with BMC or Snowcard insurance may not even be aware that they aren't covered. I only enquired myself this time because I had to last time due to the travel ban advisory, I could have quite easily just arranged it online for worldwide travel and not checked.

I think I will just take out ordinary travel insurance and if anything happens in the mountains then I will extricate myself which is what I would do anyway. Seems to me that heli-vac has actually become quite a money spinner in Nepal, I have heard stories of multiple rescues a day from the mountains when things are very, very busy. Don't know how true that is.

Well Oli news from you is like waiting for a bus. No buses for ages then several come along at once! We didn't get the opportunity to quiz you in Kendal and we couldn't quite believe that you had broken the habit and weren't going to Nepal. I guess you were waiting to arrange something and have now got some firm plans. Glad to hear you are getting back out there later in the year.

Flights have gone up a bit BTW. Gulf had some for £650 and Qatar were at least £750, Thai a lot more and Etihad are a new one about the same as Gulf but a bit of an unknown quantity. I was watching the flights for a bit and didn't see prices move around much. The fluctuations seemed to be around which dates (and days) your flights were on. They can vary by £100 or more even with moving your flight from a Saturday to a Sunday. It's worth trying lots of combinations.

[Escher]

Thanks Redders and Spaceboy. I'll do some research...

[Spaceman347]

Ahem! Spaceboy indeed. The cheek of some people, and I even tried to help this time too.

[Escher]

You should change your moniker to "Annoying question answerer" and then you have come of age - Spaceboy becomes the Spaceman. <Well that sounded good in my head - but on reading it is gibberish> :rolleyes:

How are you getting on with your 40D? I love it - some of the features are great - I have my custom modes setup now and they are a real boon. I have one set on auto ISO and AI Servo auto focus with custom function 4-2 switched on. Have a look at this:- http://creativekarma.com/ee.php/weblog/comments/custom_function_4_on_the_canon_eos_digital_rebel_x t_350d/

It allows you to control the focus using the exposure lock button (the AE lock swaps with the focus lock button) by holding it down, the camera tracks focus on that spot and doesn't refocus when your press the shutter half way (it still does if you haven't pressed AE). It is supposed to give you a much higher yield of sharp pictures for anything moving and general photography (i.e. when you haven't the time to be really pernickety and have the camera on "one shot" on a tripod a la landscape photography).

If you use this technique to focus and then recompose the shot it tracks the focussing area so removing the issue with recomposing and messing up the focal plane. I am going to try auto ISO (noise is so well controlled) on Av with this focus method as my general walk around method (setup on C1) as I think it will improve my ratio of good (technically anyway) shots. Worth having a look at.

** Normal - non-geeky- trekking info service will be resumed shortly - please be patient**

Ps. the 40D group pool on Flickr has very useful forum. Well worth having a read.

-- Now if only I hadn't read that Nikon D300 review :mad:

[Spaceman347]

There ya go, I simply changed it to "annoying", there's probably not too much point being overly specific about the issue anyway. :p

I'm ashamed to say that I really haven't made that much time to play with the camera, I haven't even taken it out of the drawer for 6 weeks. Santa bought me a new mountain bike and I've been out trying to get some fitness going (and then spending significant time cleaning and bandaging the associated wounds that accompany riding on technical single-track without the necessary skill). It's been many years since I felt that stinging sensation that you can only get from stepping into the shower with cuts and grazes all up your forearm. Damn clipless pedals with be the death of me :o

Thanks for the camera tips, I'll go and have a read and see if I can figure it out. In regard to reviews on even newer cameras, my motto is to completely stop looking once I make a decision and buy a camera/bike/jacket. Decision made, there's no point in torturing myself even further, I do enough of that during the original decision making process. Only losers use Nikon's anyway (only saying that because Oli's back and he uses a Nikon)

Oli: It's good to hear from you mate, it's been a while

[Escher]

I haven't been taking too many photos either, I've just been trying to learn as much about the camera as I can before going away so I can make the most of it. Having physio at the moment on my ankle and hoping it'll be fixed enough to get some trekking in and be able to have some time to do a little bit of training before the off, but there isn't long. Fingers crossed eh?

There don't seem to be many activities which involve quite as many lumps, bumps, scrapes and bruises and picking thorns out of your arse as mountain biking. The beguiling pictures of shiny, titanium marvels of engineering in the mags and ads don't really portray this side of cylcing now do they!

And back on topic. Thanks for the tip redders. I checked out my bank account and I already have travel insurance covering us up to 2500m. That will have to do. We've both been to 6000m a couple of times so will cope with the Thorung La. Still saved 100 quid or so, which is good.

[a1jbg]

In praise of Norwich Union Direct.

For about the last 10 years Norwich Union Direct have insured me on my travels and treks around the world. I have never needed them until about 3 years ago when I took a fall whilst climbing Roriama (The Lost World Trek) in Venezuala.
I was only about one third of the way up the near vertical face when I slipped and fell. I only fell about 10 feet and landed on my back. The fall was cushioned by my backpack, but it caused my neck to whiplash when I landed.
I managed to complete the climb to the rim and then to our camping spot under a huge overhanging rock. As soon as I stopped the pain came on and on in waves and I couldn`t move. There was no radio coverage from the top so a porter/runner was sent down with a radio and my insurance details to summon a helicoptor, which arrived on the morning of the 3rd day.
I was taken to a hospital and given x-rays, pain killing drip and put in a neck brace. The helicoptor pilot stayed as my interpretor.
The x-rays did not look good and seemed to show a chipped vertabrae. The doctor and helicoptor pilot liased with Norwich Union to charter a plane to take me to Caracus to go to a hospital with MRI scanning facilities. An ambulance was waiting at the airfield to take me to hospital.
It was a very slick operation that must have cost Norwich Union well in excess of £5,000, and they were excellent as were everyone involved, team leader, runner/porter, doctors, helicoptor pilot and of course Norwich Union.
I would happily reccommend them to you all.

[Oli]

Thanks for the story, its reassuring to hear that the UK banks are good for something :p I'll bet the final bill for that was rather more than £5000. If you'd needed medical assistance whilst returning to the UK the costs get astronomic. Two friends of friends where unlucky enough to be run over by a bus/truck in Moscow - when they recovered consciousness in hospital the first question they were asked by the doctors was "how will you be paying for your treatment?" They needed an air-ambulance to get them home and the total cost was in excess of £1million. :eek:

The FCO.gov.uk blurb on Venezuela makes it sound a helluva lot more risky than Nepal. Even just getting to/from the international airport at Caracas being more dangerous than climbing a tepui out in the jungle. :confused:

[a1jbg]

Hi Oli

You are right about Caracus being dangerous, our team leader and various taxi drivers were telling us some pretty horrific stories of robberies and violence.
One abiding memory I have of Venezuala is the huge, clapped out, rusted American cars on the roads, belching out smoke. It is no wonder I suppose with the price of petrol at the pumps being less than 1p a litre!
The other abiding memory is of our Venezuelan team leader, who hooked up his hammock right next to my tent so I could give him a shout if I wanted anything. For 2 nights I lay flat on my back, unable to sleep and in agony, listening to him snoring and farting all night long!

[MulesMarinair]

I'm searching for UK cover up to 5000m for a trek in April and am finding that they are pretty thin on the ground.
Insure And Go www.insureandgo.com provide cover to 6000m as standard but you ahve to forego personal accident (the loss of limb, sight, death bit) and personal liability (the I trip and fall on top of you, now you sue me bit). Premiums seem resonable too. AIG underwrite them.

[Oli]

I just called AIG, the insurers with the advert at the top of these forums. They informed me that they do NOT provide insurance cover for trekking about 4000m. So cross them off the list... :(

[MulesMarinair]

> Insure and Go Insurance Services provides cheaper quotes and cover online, from cheap car insurance to travel insurance. With a comprehensive range of products in association with well-known UK insurers including AXA, Norwich Union, Zurich, NIG, Allianz, Legal & General, Royal and Sun Alliance, Fortis, Lloyds of London and AIG UK Limited. We ensure that you receive the most suitable quotation at the very best price. Whatever type of policy you are looking for with the best cover available and all at internet prices.

:o ...found the small print, they don't deal solely with AIG... called them and they do cover to 6000m
http://www.insureandgo.com/travel-insurance/Adventure-Travel-Insurance.htm

I think the 6000m is with the standard single trip insurance as well, doesn't have to be Adventure

MM