Touring insurance
- Thread starter Simon_m
- Start date
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snorri
Legendary Member
- Location
- East coast, up a bit.
....and giving cover for incidents which wouldn't worry me. I gave up in the end.
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
^^^^^ Wot he said. The BMC used to be really good for unusual "adventure" insurance. Top guys.
The big players for travel insurance are entirely useless.
The big players for travel insurance are entirely useless.
OP
OP
Simon_m
Guru
ok thanks. I will go check. someone on another forum said:
http://www.snowcard.co.uk/
but the prices are huge, much higher then a normal company
http://www.snowcard.co.uk/
but the prices are huge, much higher then a normal company
Amanda P
Legendary Member
- Location
- York. Well, York-ish...
Have you looked at the CTC/Citybond Suretravel policy? We've used it for foreign cycling trips. It includes reasonable cover for you bike, riding it, and all the other usual travel insurance stuff. There's a link on the right of the CTC's home page.
oldfatfool
Guru
expect to have to carry the larges heaviest lock you can imagine (anchor chain is good) if you expect a payout for theft though.
oldfatfool
Guru
The thing is the insurance won't pay out unless you can prove it was locked with an approved device to an immovable object.
lpretro1
Guest
The BMC insurance policy which covers cycle touring is the Trek one, the Rock policy covers mtbing. It is in the little italic part at th bottom of the section saying 'other sports covered' as below:
What's covered:
Mountain walking in Britain – including the use of crampons and ice-axes. All mountain-walking trips including adventurous treks in the Alps and Himalaya. Via ferrata. Recognised trekking routes with simple glacier crossings and scrambles. Non-technical ascents of easy trekking routes on peaks that do not require the use of technical climbing equipment.
Examples: Tour du Mont Blanc, Walkers' Haute Route Chamonix -Zermatt, Vie ferrate in the Pyrenees and Dolomites, Mt Toubkal. Kilimanjaro (except Umbwe/Western Breach, Mt Kenya (except Batian & Nelion). Baltoro Glacier-Concordia and K2 Base Camp trek, Annapurna Circuit, Gokyo Lake & Cho La Pass, Everest Base Camp. Normal trekking routes on: Kala Patar, Naya Kanga, Pisang, Ramdung, Stok Kangri, Mera Peak and Island Peak (Imja Tse) but if combined via Amphu Labsta is ‘Alpine & Ski’. Inca Trail, Machu Picchu. Normal trekking routes on: Cotopaxi, Chimborazo.
What’s not covered:
Ascents of graded climbs. The crossing of high-altitude passes with snow covered crevasses. Examples: Biafo-Hispar route, Amphu Labsta (Mera Peak-Island Peak), Gondogoro La, Tent Peak (Tharpa Chuli), Paldor, Parchamo, Pokalde, Lobuje East. Trekking above 6,500m (for this you'll need our Alpine & Ski policy)
Other sports covered:
Canoeing and Kayaking (inland and coastal waters only), Cycle Touring, Horse Riding (excluding racing and jumps), Rowing, Snorkelling, Swimming, Surfing.
What's covered:
Mountain walking in Britain – including the use of crampons and ice-axes. All mountain-walking trips including adventurous treks in the Alps and Himalaya. Via ferrata. Recognised trekking routes with simple glacier crossings and scrambles. Non-technical ascents of easy trekking routes on peaks that do not require the use of technical climbing equipment.
Examples: Tour du Mont Blanc, Walkers' Haute Route Chamonix -Zermatt, Vie ferrate in the Pyrenees and Dolomites, Mt Toubkal. Kilimanjaro (except Umbwe/Western Breach, Mt Kenya (except Batian & Nelion). Baltoro Glacier-Concordia and K2 Base Camp trek, Annapurna Circuit, Gokyo Lake & Cho La Pass, Everest Base Camp. Normal trekking routes on: Kala Patar, Naya Kanga, Pisang, Ramdung, Stok Kangri, Mera Peak and Island Peak (Imja Tse) but if combined via Amphu Labsta is ‘Alpine & Ski’. Inca Trail, Machu Picchu. Normal trekking routes on: Cotopaxi, Chimborazo.
What’s not covered:
Ascents of graded climbs. The crossing of high-altitude passes with snow covered crevasses. Examples: Biafo-Hispar route, Amphu Labsta (Mera Peak-Island Peak), Gondogoro La, Tent Peak (Tharpa Chuli), Paldor, Parchamo, Pokalde, Lobuje East. Trekking above 6,500m (for this you'll need our Alpine & Ski policy)
Other sports covered:
Canoeing and Kayaking (inland and coastal waters only), Cycle Touring, Horse Riding (excluding racing and jumps), Rowing, Snorkelling, Swimming, Surfing.
CycleTourer
Veteran
- Location
- Bury St. Edmunds
There are several things that you need to consider when taking out insurance for cycle touring and that is will they repatriate you, your luggage and your bike as well and who actually under writes the insurance that you buy as they will be the people you will be dealing with, you will see what I mean by our experiences below.
Early on in our touring trips we had just used ordinary basic travel insurance and had on one occasion nearly needed to use it as I had injured my back in Norway. When my wife rang up the insurance company we found out that they would repatriate us but not our bikes, at nearly £1500 per bike to replace it could have been costly to leave them and a hassle to get my wife to arrange for them to be sent back etc. As it happened I actually recovered enough to continue with our tour.
Following our return from that tour we looked at other more specialist insurance companies asking whether they would indeed count our bikes as part of our luggage and repatriate them with us. Quite a few wouldn't or couldn't commit to saying yes, the BMC guy was at least up front and said that they didn't, giving that if we were travelling in a car then any travel insurance wouldn't be expected to repatriate your car, that would be part of additional insurance that your would take out on the car when travelling abroad, he had a fair point. The only company that said that they would repatriate us and our bikes was the CTC.
We there after used the CTC insurance for several of our summers tours. It was only the year before last when we were in Poland that we had to use our CTC travel insurance as my wife prolapsed a disc slipping whilst getting out of our tent only 3 days into our trip. She was taken to hospital and the Polish Doctor said she shouldn't continue cycling but should return to the UK and get medical treatment as soon as possible. Well the CTC travel insurance is under written by AXA insurance and I can say it was a nightmare dealing with them. They insisted on getting medical forms filled in by our doctors before they would make any decision as to repatriating us. Our home surgery told us that it could take nearly 10 - 14 days to turn this around. We couldn't believe all this delay and you could imagine that my wife was in a lot of pain. Most of the AXA staff hadn't a clue what cycle touring was and couldn't get their heads around the fact that we had flown into Krakow and were returning via Prague in 5 weeks time. The AXA staff never kept us informed as to what was happening and we always had to chase them, I reckon it cost us just under £100 in mobile phone calls. You could never speak to the same person twice so we spent ages explaining our situation again and again, they weren't also very well trained in knowing their policies as one woman told me at one point that they would repatriate my wife but not me! I had to get her to put me through to a supervisor in the end to clarify that I would indeed be repatriated.
In the end after several days of waiting and AXA messing us about we got so fed up with them that I managed to get AXA to agree to pay for our flights home if I arranged them as clearly they weren't going to do it until all the forms were filled in by our doctor. Well I arranged all the flights and taxis etc. myself and eventually got my poor wife home some 6 days after her accident. The whole thing was quite stressful for us both as you could imagine.
When we got home we put in our travel claim for the cost of our return flights from Krakow, the non-refundable flights from Prague to Stansted and the additional accommodation costs incurred. Well I'm not joking it took us 6 months to get our money back, every time we inquired they made up some excuse usually it was about waiting for the Polish Doctors report to be translated. They wouldn't answer e-mails, they said someone would ring me back but they never did. Eventually we did manage to get a payment out of them and that was only for the return flights. When I queried why we hadn't been reimbursed for the missed flights they said that that we hadn't claimed for it, I assured them we had that it was added as an additional letter, but obviously they seem to have lost that! Fortunately I had kept copies so e-mailed these off and then I was told that we could be compensated for both sets of flights. Even when I quoted him what was written in the policy he still wouldn't have it saying 'it doesn't work like that Sir'.
To cut a long story short I eventually by asking to speak to his immediate boss and then their immediate bosses further up the line and much hassle later managed to get someone who agreed that I was in fact correct and we did get all the monies back that we had claimed for according to the policy that we had taken out. He did grudgingly agree that our claim should have only have taken a week to process not 6 months, we never got a letter of apology!
Perhaps we were a little naive, we assumed that the CTC insurance would be good as it is supposed to be sold by cyclists for cyclists and that we would be dealing with staff who had some understanding of cycle touring but at the end of the day I think the CTC just want to sell it for the commission and have nothing to do with it after that.
Someone mentioned Mondiale Assistance, which is quite interesting as when the accident first happened I phoned the CTC emergency number that I had put in my phone when we first took out the CTC insurance which got me through to Mondiale Assistance, I spoke with one person all the time Charlotte, she was really helpful and was getting everything arranged, she had got our Polish doctors report which I had faxed to her translated, but on the second day informed us that there was a slight problem she had double checked our insurance number and we weren't in fact insured with them but with AXA. It seems because we had renewed our CTC policy each year the CTC had changed who the assistance had been with and hadn't made it clear to us that the emergency number had changed hence the mix up. It is a shame as Mondiale Assistance were excellent Charlotte was so helpful and passed on all our details to AXA including the translated Polish Doctors report. Yes AXA did have a copy of that Doctors report and when I mentioned this to AXA when they kept fobbing me off with the 'we are waiting for the polish translation' bit they said that would have gone through to the repatriation department, which is a completely different department from claims, and that they don't have access to their files. Doesn't it say it all about AXA.
This summer we decided to tour in Scotland as we just didn't want the hassle of searching out travel insurance. But next summer we hope to tour either Norway or Iceland again so we will have to begin looking again ourselves. We will certainly be looking closely at who actually under rights the insurance and who will be dealing with any claim. After our brief but excellent experience with Mondiale Assistance we could well be looking at them but it certainly will not be with any company dealing with AXA!!!!!
Early on in our touring trips we had just used ordinary basic travel insurance and had on one occasion nearly needed to use it as I had injured my back in Norway. When my wife rang up the insurance company we found out that they would repatriate us but not our bikes, at nearly £1500 per bike to replace it could have been costly to leave them and a hassle to get my wife to arrange for them to be sent back etc. As it happened I actually recovered enough to continue with our tour.
Following our return from that tour we looked at other more specialist insurance companies asking whether they would indeed count our bikes as part of our luggage and repatriate them with us. Quite a few wouldn't or couldn't commit to saying yes, the BMC guy was at least up front and said that they didn't, giving that if we were travelling in a car then any travel insurance wouldn't be expected to repatriate your car, that would be part of additional insurance that your would take out on the car when travelling abroad, he had a fair point. The only company that said that they would repatriate us and our bikes was the CTC.
We there after used the CTC insurance for several of our summers tours. It was only the year before last when we were in Poland that we had to use our CTC travel insurance as my wife prolapsed a disc slipping whilst getting out of our tent only 3 days into our trip. She was taken to hospital and the Polish Doctor said she shouldn't continue cycling but should return to the UK and get medical treatment as soon as possible. Well the CTC travel insurance is under written by AXA insurance and I can say it was a nightmare dealing with them. They insisted on getting medical forms filled in by our doctors before they would make any decision as to repatriating us. Our home surgery told us that it could take nearly 10 - 14 days to turn this around. We couldn't believe all this delay and you could imagine that my wife was in a lot of pain. Most of the AXA staff hadn't a clue what cycle touring was and couldn't get their heads around the fact that we had flown into Krakow and were returning via Prague in 5 weeks time. The AXA staff never kept us informed as to what was happening and we always had to chase them, I reckon it cost us just under £100 in mobile phone calls. You could never speak to the same person twice so we spent ages explaining our situation again and again, they weren't also very well trained in knowing their policies as one woman told me at one point that they would repatriate my wife but not me! I had to get her to put me through to a supervisor in the end to clarify that I would indeed be repatriated.
In the end after several days of waiting and AXA messing us about we got so fed up with them that I managed to get AXA to agree to pay for our flights home if I arranged them as clearly they weren't going to do it until all the forms were filled in by our doctor. Well I arranged all the flights and taxis etc. myself and eventually got my poor wife home some 6 days after her accident. The whole thing was quite stressful for us both as you could imagine.
When we got home we put in our travel claim for the cost of our return flights from Krakow, the non-refundable flights from Prague to Stansted and the additional accommodation costs incurred. Well I'm not joking it took us 6 months to get our money back, every time we inquired they made up some excuse usually it was about waiting for the Polish Doctors report to be translated. They wouldn't answer e-mails, they said someone would ring me back but they never did. Eventually we did manage to get a payment out of them and that was only for the return flights. When I queried why we hadn't been reimbursed for the missed flights they said that that we hadn't claimed for it, I assured them we had that it was added as an additional letter, but obviously they seem to have lost that! Fortunately I had kept copies so e-mailed these off and then I was told that we could be compensated for both sets of flights. Even when I quoted him what was written in the policy he still wouldn't have it saying 'it doesn't work like that Sir'.
To cut a long story short I eventually by asking to speak to his immediate boss and then their immediate bosses further up the line and much hassle later managed to get someone who agreed that I was in fact correct and we did get all the monies back that we had claimed for according to the policy that we had taken out. He did grudgingly agree that our claim should have only have taken a week to process not 6 months, we never got a letter of apology!
Perhaps we were a little naive, we assumed that the CTC insurance would be good as it is supposed to be sold by cyclists for cyclists and that we would be dealing with staff who had some understanding of cycle touring but at the end of the day I think the CTC just want to sell it for the commission and have nothing to do with it after that.
Someone mentioned Mondiale Assistance, which is quite interesting as when the accident first happened I phoned the CTC emergency number that I had put in my phone when we first took out the CTC insurance which got me through to Mondiale Assistance, I spoke with one person all the time Charlotte, she was really helpful and was getting everything arranged, she had got our Polish doctors report which I had faxed to her translated, but on the second day informed us that there was a slight problem she had double checked our insurance number and we weren't in fact insured with them but with AXA. It seems because we had renewed our CTC policy each year the CTC had changed who the assistance had been with and hadn't made it clear to us that the emergency number had changed hence the mix up. It is a shame as Mondiale Assistance were excellent Charlotte was so helpful and passed on all our details to AXA including the translated Polish Doctors report. Yes AXA did have a copy of that Doctors report and when I mentioned this to AXA when they kept fobbing me off with the 'we are waiting for the polish translation' bit they said that would have gone through to the repatriation department, which is a completely different department from claims, and that they don't have access to their files. Doesn't it say it all about AXA.
This summer we decided to tour in Scotland as we just didn't want the hassle of searching out travel insurance. But next summer we hope to tour either Norway or Iceland again so we will have to begin looking again ourselves. We will certainly be looking closely at who actually under rights the insurance and who will be dealing with any claim. After our brief but excellent experience with Mondiale Assistance we could well be looking at them but it certainly will not be with any company dealing with AXA!!!!!
OP
OP
Simon_m
Guru
wow thanks for that long story, sounds like you had quite a drama! I can't imagine anything worse then being out of your comfort zone, in a foreign country and in a lot of pain like that. Poor wifey. It seems like all insurence companies are great at taking your money, but when it's time to pay up, they fob you off as much as possible so you give it. I've heard this time and time again with house and car insurance. Hmmmm, going to have to do a lot of research before taking it out. Generally I'm against taking any out, but being in a country where if something does happen and you end up in hospital, the bills would be far higher then the hassel. Enjoy next years tour and hope nothing bad happens then!
