Your Travel Insurance May Not Protect All Your Travel Activities
Michael Babboni
Insurance Coverage
The bright, sunny skies and warm weather of Florida make it a natural destination for fun seekers of all kinds. While some may be looking for nothing more than relaxing trip on the ocean in a boat, others may be wanting more of a thrill, from water-skiing, skydiving, zip gliding or the many other “extreme sports” activities that Florida’s weather makes it easy to participate in all year round.Many of these travelers will take the precaution of getting a bit of travel insurance when they go on their trip. It’s a perfectly rational decision that gives people some peace of mind and a bit of added financial safety in the event that anything should happen while they are on their vacation. Travel insurance is likely to give coverage to the more conventional incidents than may happen on a trip, such as getting caught in a car accident while renting a car and driving in a new state or country. Many, however, are surprised when they find out that their more risky activities don’t have the protection they assumed was there.
Extreme Sports Mean Extreme Risk
On April 6th, 2014, a Canadian visitor in Arizona by the name of Kenzie Markey indulged in one of her favorite activities; skydiving. She was an experienced skydiver who had performed this act many times, and on some trips had jumped as many as 20 times in a single week.
Unfortunately for her, this particular trip went badly. She jumped out of the plane, enjoyed her freefall, and then pulled the ripcord to open her parachute. Everything went as planned. But during the descent, the parachute that was slowing her fall collapsed, and she fell the rest of the way down. She sustained a collapsed lung, broken femur, pelvis, and eye socket along with some brain swelling. Investigations ultimately deduced that the parachute may have collapsed as a result of “dust devils,” a phenomenon in which air whips itself into small “mini-tornados” in tiny, localized spaces, and since dust devils were prominent that day, one may have hit Markey’s parachute and caused the collapse.
Because Kenzie Markey was in the United States at the time, she did not have the benefit of Canadian healthcare for immediate treatment of her injuries, and her insurance, it turns out, did not cover this type of extreme sport. While her total injuries were over $500,000, it would cost $50000 just to fly her back to Canada to get treated under Canadian healthcare.
Look Over Your Policy
If you plan on undertaking some kind of extreme sport activity while traveling, always make sure to ask whether you are covered in your travel insurance. It’s extremely risky to assume that just because you’re getting a travel insurance policy, it will provide coverage for every activity you choose to undertake. There’s an implicit understanding that activities like skydiving and bungee jumping bring a much higher chance of severe injury requiring treatment. Your travel insurance may go out of its way to exclude this protection unless you check.