Adventure travel insurance

Whether you need adventure travel insurance depends on what you’ll be doing on your holiday. Lower-risk activities like snorkelling are often covered by standard travel insurance, but higher-risk ones like skydiving probably aren't.

If you're planning a regular holiday that also includes a couple of activities, you may be fine with standard travel insurance – as long as your chosen insurer covers your planned activities. This means that, ideally, you should plan your activities in advance to make sure they’re covered.

But if the sole purpose of your holiday is an activity – perhaps you’re going mountaineering at high altitude in a remote part of the world – you’ll probably need more specialised insurance.

The important thing is to be honest so you can get accurate quotes for your trip. For example, let's say you were injured while paragliding. If you didn't have adventure travel insurance, any treatment you needed as a result of that injury wouldn’t be covered by your policy.

According to GOV.UK, if you were to break your leg in Spain, hospital treatment and flights back to the UK could cost you £15,000. Adventure travel insurance could help you cover those costs.

Don’t just rely on your Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC), which allows you to get medical treatment in the EU at the same cost as the residents of the country you’re in. Although this could mean completely free medical care, depending on the country, it doesn’t offer the additional cover you get with travel insurance. And if you’re travelling outside Europe, you can’t use your GHIC.

Bear in mind that winter sports such as skiing and snowboarding usually aren’t covered as standard by travel insurance. If you’re going on this type of holiday, make sure you check the box to include winter sports cover when you get a quote.

As soon as you know where you’re travelling to and what activities you’ll be doing, you should buy your travel insurance. This will help make sure your costs are covered if you have to cancel the trip due to reasons outside your control.

The cost of your adventure travel insurance depends on:

• Where you’re travelling
• Your age
• The activities you plan on doing
• If you’ve got medical conditions
• What type of cover you need

• Where you're travelling: If you’re travelling in Europe, the chances are your policy will be cheaper than if you’re travelling worldwide.
• Your age: The older you are, the more expensive your insurance usually is.
• The activities you plan on doing: If you have plans to bungee jump or go cage diving on your trip, the cost of your policy could go up. This is because these are usually seen as higher-risk activities by insurers.
• If you’ve got any medical conditions: The cost of travel insurance usually increases if you have a specific condition or illness, as insurers consider you more likely to need medical attention.
• What type of cover you need: This depends on how many times you plan on travelling in a year. If the holiday is a one-off, single-trip travel insurance is usually the cheaper option. If you’re going away several times in a year, an annual travel insurance policy could work out cheaper than buying a separate policy for each trip. This could be useful if you regularly do the same activities every time you go away.