Trying to get my head around my options... Views welcomed from any fellow travellers!
Scenario - going on a long trip. About 6 months Jan-July, few days back in July for weddings, then out again until September. Out in a van (don't even get me started on insuring that!), flying back for the weddings.
Bmc insurance would need a long single trip jan-jul and then either another single trip or an annual policy for after that. This neatly helps split it into a rock and an alpine leg as well. I'm figuring this is about gold standard in that it ought to cover me for everything I need. Seems to clock in at about a grand all told.
The other option I've looked at is a backpackers insurance policy, which covers some possessions cover and the usual other bits and bobs, and a big old whack of medical cover. This can be paired with AAC cover which has some rescue cover, some repatriation cover (unsure as to whether the rescue cover is just in the first 8 weeks of any trip, repatriation cover definitely is) and not a lot else. This is about £250 all in.
Holes in the latter that I can see seem to be:
- an accident rock climbing in Jan/Feb and in the entire alpine leg of the trip you get the AAC medical cover plus your ehic cover for medical care. Technically, you're not covered for a rock climbing accident on the backpackers policy, only hiking, so the bigger payout limits aren't relevant.
- Mar-July you're reliant solely on your ehic, since the medical cover on AAC has expired and again your backpackers policy isn't technically covering you. If (unlikely whilst sport climbing) you get left with an actual rescue bill you are screwed.
- if you have a really expensive alpine rescue, as ever with the AAC stuff, you might be left short since its only, what, €25k or something which won't fly a chopper for long in Switzerland?
Other alternatives I could see are ditching the AAC cover and going for backpackers whilst bolt clipping and put the saving towards an upgrade to gold standard alpine cover, or AAC plus backpackers plus bmc alpine cover, or something like that. Main focus is on rescue and medical costs, won't have very much in the way of expensive possessions with us so far less fussed about that (plus there'll be some cover on stuff whilst its in the van anyway).
What have I missed?
