SKydiving insurance questions - what's best?

[degeneration 5]

I'm going to be doing the AFF in july in Empuriabrava and now don't know what is best to do about insurance. I figured most of hte experienced people in these forums would have some idea, which is more than I do.

Should I get the BPA membership (£150) and personal accident insurance? Or should I get the personal accident insurance and the 3rd party insurance offered at Empuriabrava? Or option 3, personal accident and shop around for other 3rd party insurance?

Cheers.

ps. Other than the bunk-house at the DZ, does anyone know of any cheap places to stay with a double room in Empuria?

Sky Switches - Affordable stills camera tongue switches and conversion adaptors, supporting various brands of camera (Canon, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic).

[kevinwhelan 0]

Try etravelinsure.com
I have allwaws found them good and not too costly

"be honest with yourself. Why do I want to go smaller? It is not going to make my penis longer." ~Brian Germain, on downsizing

[degeneration 5]

Just looked at their site and their quote isn't bad, but I'm confused to say the least about the small print in the high risk activities section which includes skydiving.

Quote

For certain activities the condition is that cover under other sections of the policy is excluded:
(4) cover under policy section (C) PERSONAL ACCIDENT.
(5) cover under policy section (J) PERSONAL LIABILITY.
The condition numbers are annotated to the categories or activities to which they apply below.

Now skydiving comes under these conditions, so does it mean that skydiving isn't actually covered under personal accident or personal liability?

Empuria require third party insurance, that's the same as personal liability, right?

Sky Switches - Affordable stills camera tongue switches and conversion adaptors, supporting various brands of camera (Canon, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic).

[cpoxon 0]

A couple of questions to consider:

Do you intend to jump in the UK upon your return?

If so, you will need BPA membership anyway and their insurance third-party liability cover is £100,000 outside of the UK (no cover in the US). It was mentioned on this thread that they thought Empuria required £2M worth of cover. Might be worth asking.

Also, how much does the third party insurance offered at Empuria cost and how much is the cover?

Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

[degeneration 5]

The BPA insurance is £100000 at non BPA affiliated DZs, but is still £2m at BPA affiliated DZs. As far as I am aware Empuria is BPA affiliated.

I do plan on jumping once I'm back in the UK, so even though it is a bigger expense just now it might be worth it in the long run.

Do you have to BPA insurance to jump in the UK? Cause someone on that thread you linked to said they have a £50 yearly insurance through Endsleigh. Is that ok instead of BPA?

Sky Switches - Affordable stills camera tongue switches and conversion adaptors, supporting various brands of camera (Canon, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic).

[Legs 0]

You have to have BPA membership to Jump anywhere in the UK. Unless you are a foreign national jumping on your home liscence I believe.

Regards

With love in Christ

[skytash 0]

There are multiple types of insurance offered by various people and needed/wanted for various things:

3rd party liability - example: you land on someone else's car to cover the cost of repairing the car. Part of the BPA membership and required if you jump in the UK. cover is as mentioned above. Empuria may offer something similar, but it is likely only to be valid there or in Spain or something and if you want to jump in the UK, you'll still need BPA membership, so worth finding out whether you may be double paying if you get the one at Empuria.
Not many providers out there in the UK apart from BPA

Personal accident insurance - will pay out if you hurt yourself jumping, may only cover jumping in the UK. Lots of providers out there, read the small print to see if they cover you while jumping. Works on the basis, you gt £x for breaking a leg and £y for breaking an arm etc. It will pay a lump sum for the fact you have hurt yourself, irrespective of how much it may cost you to be treated etc. Useful if you think you may not be able to work and get paid for a time as a result of getting hurt as it would allow you to pay bills. I don't have one, as I get sick pay and can work as long as my brain and mouth are in order. If neither of them are working, I may not have to worry about bills as I'll be on a hospital ward. If you make a claim on personal accident, your insurer is likely to want to get someone else to cover their costs, so if there was a second skydiver involved, they are likely to sue the other skydiver, giving rise to a member on member claim - different issue, but I think Brits know what I'm alluding to here...
lots of providers out there including the big insurance companies, Endsleigh, groupama, Legal&General

Travel insurance - will pay for medical treatment if you hurt yourself abroad, may cover re-patriation costs (eg you have to lie down so need to be upgraded for your return flight, they pay the upgrade), may cover your kit while abroad as well. Unlikely to pay out damage to make to others and most likely will only pay the amount of cost incurred, so won't allow you to have lump sum to cover bills while you aren't working. Again, check small print to make sure it covers skydiving.
Not many insurance companies out there, Axa used to be the preferred provider for most Brits, then they took it away again, now Endsleigh, etravelinsurance, Harrison Baumont and others advertising in the mag

I recently got myself etravelinsurance and was amazed at the low price. I called them up to check and basically, they have a higher excess for skydiving accidents (so you pay the first £500, still better than paying the lot) and they don't believe that skydiving is as dangerous as people make out!

Make sure you don't confuse the different types of insurance out there and believe that having bought one, you will have cover for something else. Also worth looking at insurance for kit, which ideally includes replacing a cut-away main you can't find. I haven't done much investigating on this one, so don't know who provides what kind of cover.

Just as an aside - insurance companies are very careful to investigate large claims. If they have too many large claims, they need to increase the premium they charge, or withdraw altogether (as Axa did). They will therefore try to make sure they are only paying for what they have covered you for and interpret things as narrowly as possible. Read all the small print, call up to check if necessary and make a record of when you called them and who you spoke to if you got the answer you wanted to hear to refer back to in the even they decide that they intepret things differently once you claim than you thought they would at the time you took out the cover.

tash

edited for spelling - I haven't finished my morning coffee yet (and then had to re-edit as I didn't spell coffee right - I'll go now, wake up and log on again...)

Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is a special occasion. Avril Sloe

[shropshire 0]

I use the BMC insurance... seems great but it's only at the time that you need it that you'd actually find out... which is why I go for a big name.

clicky

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[cpoxon 0]

Quote

The BPA insurance is £100000 at non BPA affiliated DZs, but is still £2m at BPA affiliated DZs. As far as I am aware Empuria is BPA affiliated.

No, it's associated and that's only until the end of the month when "associations" are disbanded.

Edit: Oh, and there's quite a useful article on the BPA website about insurance if you haven't read it already.

Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live