Time to renew my travel insurance. All prices are approximate, for annual cover, and for my own circumstances, in March 2025.

Requirements

• Annual cover. Even with just two trips a year, annual cover ends up being cheaper.
• Existing medical conditions: High blood pressure, but straightforward.
• Worldwide excluding America. Exact definition varies between policies – the exclusion often extends to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and sometimes even Asian countries.
• Unguided off-piste winter sports: I occasionally venture a little off the piste for fresh snow.

Resources

First stop is Money Saving Expert’s travel insurance page. There’s also a separate page for Pre-existing conditions but it seems that most insurance lets you add straightforward medical conditions without inflating the premium too much. MoneySuperMarket is the second stop.

Destinations

Choosing “Worldwide excluding…” is a slight gamble: I don’t plan to visit any of the countries covered by the exclusion, but they’re not countries I’d avoid. Given the price difference, it seems better to take the cost saving and accept the small risk I’ll have to buy separate insurance if I need to.

Winter Sports

Off-Piste Cover

The main stumbling block is wanting unguided off-piste cover for winter sports. Previously I’ve not worried about it, but that’s naïve even when in Europe and covered by my EHIC/GHIC card. For me the entire point of insurance is not so I can claim back some £100 loss, but for the very unlikely accident that costs £1m. If that accident is off-piste and my insurance doesn’t cover that, it’s useless.

Even the cheapest policies often cover guided off-piste skiing and snowboarding, but the comparison websites don’t let you filter for this, and usually you have to search the policy document to check the details. (An old Guardian article states that only 9% of policies cover unguided off-piste.)

After ruling out several of the cheaper providers, I found a couple of somewhat more expensive providers that cover some situations, but each with their own wording.

Staysure (£101 with discount code) covers “off-piste but within the confines of the ski resort on recognised and authorised areas only“. To me this seems to depend on the definition of “recognised” and “authorised”, and so potentially puts the burden on the claimant. Also no cover for hiking above 2,500m (e.g. Nepal)

InsureAndGo‘s policy wording for their Silver annual insurance (£137 or £155 with “hazardous” sports including mountain biking and hiking over 3,000m) covers “Off piste skiing/snowboarding (except in areas considered to be unsafe by resort management)”. This seems much simpler because to reject a claim the insurer needs to prove it was unsafe.

multitrip.com‘s Essential annual insurance (£60 in 2024) covers “off piste skiing or snowboarding except in areas designated as unsafe by local resort management unless accompanied by a locally qualified guide”, but can’t be bought online with existing medical conditions.

Post Office (£63) covers “Skiing and Snowboarding on and off piste (off piste must be within resort boundaries)” but doesn’t cover any mountain biking or electric bikes, which is restrictive for annual insurance, and max trip length is 17 days.

Oasis (£80), switchedon (£96), Virgin Money (£98), A to Z (£103), Sainsbury’s (£110): “within the resort boundaries but excluding Terrain Parks”

Tesco (£107): “within ski area boundaries of a recognised ski resort and following local ski patrol guidelines”. Hiking up to 3000m, Mountain biking (on designated trails only / not downhill)

Providers that only cover off-piste with a guide: Admiral, Cover For You, Gigasure, Rias.

Length of Cover

Most annual policies limit how much winter sports is covered in a year. It’s usually sufficient for most people and normal ski holidays, but it’s worth checking the details and the wording.

InsureAndGo says “Winter sports are limited to 17 days per policy year” i.e. duration is based on days skied, which seems rational.

However, Staysure says “up to two winter sports trips, with a combined total of no more than 21 days for Comprehensive policies and 28 days for Signature policies” i.e. duration is based on the length of the whole trip, not just the days on the slopes.

For a week skiing in the Alps, the difference is minimal, but for my trip (11 days in Korea followed by 20 days in Japan including 6 days skiing) it makes a huge difference. In theory the whole 31 days is classed as a winter sports trip, but Staysure clarified that since I was only skiing in Japan, it only counts as 20 days.

In summary, check the small print!