UKC

I'm applying for some new life insurance to cover my mortgage atm. Aviva have been very interested in my climbing at home and abroad and asked all sorts of strange questions. The information they're working with is:

Climb English 5a or higher
Climb on traditional protection
Climb in all seasons
Climb in the Alps above 4000m
Climb in Norway below 2000m
Don't solo

And this has put my quote up from £7 a month to over £60 a month!! That's £20 more than the expensive joint policy I'm replacing!

What're other peoples experiences with climbing and life insurance? I'm not sure that any climbing abroad should be relevant to them as I'd always have private insurance which would cover death.

I always wondered if highball bouldering is considered soloing. I put no to soloing but it's a bit of an ambigous term.

Anyway, I vaguely remember Aviva being a bit crap. I think we went with Liverpool Victoria in the end.

In reply to highaltitudebarista:

• Most policies, like the BMC ones, cover a tiny sum on death (about £5k I think?), substantially less than most life insurance. Relying on this to pay off your mortgage/provide for your family/etc if you die is a risky choice
  
• Insurance questionnaires like this work by trying to put people into pools together with other people of a similar level of risk. The questions aim to subdivide as far as is practical.
• Asking whether you climb abroad puts you in a box with other people who climb abroad. Whether you climb abroad or not, their experience has shown that the type of person who does climb abroad is more likely to make a claim (wherever it happens to be) than the kind of person who doesn't. Hypothetically, the average person who goes to the Alps in the summer is more likely to do Scottish winter mountaineering, trad climb on bigger and more remote mountain crags, be a more regular climber, things like that. It isn't about whether you climb abroad, its about what answering that question says about your climbing in general.
  
• If youre tempted to lie and say you dont climb abroad because of the private cover - think about the comment above, you're still a bigger risk to them even if you don't actually claim through an accident abroad. If they find out you are lying they could rightly refuse to pay or pay a reduced amount if you claim even for an accident in the UK.

Hope this helps,

AJM

In reply to highaltitudebarista: I have had terrible experiences with this. It's basically impossible to find a policy that will allow you to do regular trad climbing and (especially) alpinism without paying a hefty premium. Some years ago (I think in 1988) the Alpine Journal published a study by an insurance actuary and mountaineer based on a survey of all AC members in the 1930s. It found that even including those who died in the mountains, climbers on average lived longer because they were healthier. But insurance companies do not want to know. The situation is getting worse, if anything - ten years ago I found it quite easy to get a policy without paying a vast amount more.

In reply to AJM: You make a pretty solid case!

So is everyone paying ridiculous amounts for life insurance or are there more realistic insurers out there?

In reply to davidoldfart:

Living longer = irrelevant to most life insurance policies.

Most life insurance stops about 65 or so (on the assumption that by that age you have no dependents and no mortgage. Obviously you can get it for longer, but most people don't). How much longer you live after that doesn't matter.

Its the early deaths, particularly the ones that occur in the first few years, that skew things. And for young people, all it really takes is a small number of extra deaths to have a big difference (at age 25, an extra death per ten thousand is about a 20% increase in the number you'd expect).

Insurance companies don't rate on things for the hell of it. If you are charged more, its because during the time you are insured you are more likely to be a bigger risk. Ten years ago people were subdivided into less precise boxes - your premiums may be more, but the non-climbing population has seen its premiums drop to compensate. It feels like youre being victimised, but actually its because other people aren't subsidising your higher risk level any more.

AJM

In reply to highaltitudebarista:

No idea. My job used to be pricing life insurance, so I know how it works, but since I don't have any as yet myself I wouldn't know how different companies compare on their non-standard rates....

AJM