Why do so many travel insurance products not cover competitions / racing?

miklcct

I am trying to buy a travel insurance for my overseas trip(s), and nearly my trips are for sports competitions, including orienteering, swimming (including winter swimming), triathlon, etc.

I entered the details into a price comparison website and started to check the details one by one, but most of them list racing under exclusions (even if I have winter sports enabled in the search), and there isn't a button on the price comparison website that allows me to include sports competitions.

Eventually I ended up buying my policies from a specialist provider without going through any price comparison website.

Why do so many products specifically exclude racing, which is a common activity for triathletes travelling aboard, and also why don't price comparison websites provide option to include sports racing?

Nebulous2

It's not just sports / racing. If you have any unusual circumstances, for fairly mundane insurance,  quote engines simply cannot cope. An alternative to going direct to a specialist is to go to a broker, who will do the legwork for you. I'm now using a broker for both house and vehicle insurance. 

Also check out things like triathlon forums to see what others do. I've done some cycling events and cycling forums were helpful in sharing information on insurance companies that were willing to provide cover. 

k12479

I can think of a couple of reasons.

Competitive sports are generally likely to mean higher risk of injury. Higher risk = higher costs. Higher costs = higher premiums for everyone, which is especially unappealing when the vast majority of travelers don't need the cover.

Risk seems hard to quantify. Your orienteering - if you break a leg, what's needed? A public ambulance to the local park or a helicopter to the middle of nowhere? A skiing mishap may also need a helicopter, but that's well established so more predictable.

MyRealNameToo

miklcct said:

I am trying to buy a travel insurance for my overseas trip(s), and nearly my trips are for sports competitions, including orienteering, swimming (including winter swimming), triathlon, etc.

I entered the details into a price comparison website and started to check the details one by one, but most of them list racing under exclusions (even if I have winter sports enabled in the search), and there isn't a button on the price comparison website that allows me to include sports competitions.

Eventually I ended up buying my policies from a specialist provider without going through any price comparison website.

Why do so many products specifically exclude racing, which is a common activity for triathletes travelling aboard, and also why don't price comparison websites provide option to include sports racing?

The more questions you ask the more likely that people will get bored part the way through the questionnaire and abandon it. People generally give Aggregators a little more grace because one questionnaire gives them 20+ quotes but it's still not endless. 

There is often dynamic tension in insurance firms, the pricing specialists what hundreds of questions to be asked so they can price things as accurately as possible, the commercial guys however would rather sell 100,000 policies with roughly accurate pricing than sell 500 policies very accurately priced. 

Again aggregators are slightly different, but if you are a big firm like Aviva or Admiral and tell them you will only list your brands on their website if you as this new question then you can be sure that question will be added. If you are a small specialist firm like Race Travel Insurance that sell less than 1% of that of Admiral then 99% chance the aggregator will tell you no, and of the remaining 1% there is a 95% chance they'd ask others like Aviva and Admiral if they would be interested in the new question, they will say they arent and they dont want it added so it won't be. 

Aggregators are there to deal with the 98% of nice round pegs that fit through nice round holes, if you are any other shape then you can maybe force yourself through the round hole but you may lose some bits on the way through. 

Look for a specialist provider, they won't be on an aggregator. 

user1977

How competitive do you need to be before it counts as "racing"? I've gone abroad for marathons but fully expecting to be several thousandth down the leader board...

flaneurs_lobster

user1977 said:

How competitive do you need to be before it counts as "racing"? I've gone abroad for marathons but fully expecting to be several thousandth down the leader board...

Well, we could all give our definition of "a race" but the only one that's relevant is the one from the insurance company's terms.

Doesn't matter if you're 6,948th during the Chicago Marathon, when you keel over with a cardiac you want to be sure your medical bills will be covered.

TELLIT01

Price comparison sites are designed for the mainstream purchaser, not for those with specialist requirements.  As you have discovered, you need a broker for specialised policies.

itsthelittlethings

Short answer, because they are dangerous.

MyRealNameToo

user1977 said:

How competitive do you need to be before it counts as "racing"? I've gone abroad for marathons but fully expecting to be several thousandth down the leader board...

Need to read your policy wording, many simply exclude any racing irrespective if you are a pro, amateur or doing it for charity.  Now there will be some common sense applied, racing your kids to the sea on the beach isnt going to be excluded but doing an organised marathon would be. 

Mainly it's an excluded activity so go to NYC to do the marathon and get food poisoning then that would be covered, have a heart attack on the run and it wouldnt be. 

miklcct

Nebulous2 said:

It's not just sports / racing. If you have any unusual circumstances, for fairly mundane insurance,  quote engines simply cannot cope. An alternative to going direct to a specialist is to go to a broker, who will do the legwork for you. I'm now using a broker for both house and vehicle insurance. 

Also check out things like triathlon forums to see what others do. I've done some cycling events and cycling forums were helpful in sharing information on insurance companies that were willing to provide cover. 

British Triathlon has a partner insurance provider, Yellow Jersey, but they currently only offer cycle insurance. They are working on providing travel insurance starting from next year.

TELLIT01 said:

Price comparison sites are designed for the mainstream purchaser, not for those with specialist requirements.  As you have discovered, you need a broker for specialised policies.

If I am a professional it is of course a specialist and I will seek specialist policies, possibly the sport federation will help me to arrange (as happened in the past when I was a country representative), but isn't amateur sport racing widespread enough that a significant proportion of travellers will do it on their trips, like an option for winter sports?

k12479

miklcct said:
...but isn't amateur sport racing widespread enough that a significant proportion of travellers will do it on their trips, like an option for winter sports?

Unlikely. Conclusive numbers are hard to come by but about 64% of adults supposedly do enough physical activity. Some of that's probably exaggerated, much of it will likely be walking, then things like running, going to the gym, etc. A fraction will be competitive sports. It follows that the majority of that would be local e.g. football leagues, then the better/more dedicated regional, then national. Those travelling abroad to compete will be a very small minority - the highest level, most dedicated or very niche sports.