The insurance required is liability insurance, not medical/evacuation insurance.
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Legislative Decree n. 40: Liability Insurance and Alcohol Testing on Italian Slopes
- Thread starter Doug Briggs
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The insurance required is liability insurance, not medical/evacuation insurance.
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Cool I didn't know that. Makes more sense in this context. I could imagine more areas following suit. People are always trying to improve society.
@Idris it's same as with "speed limit" on Italian resorts. There's plenty of rumors, especially on Internet, about police enforcing strict 40km/h speed limit. Reality is different. You can actually see from time to time some police doing checks (there's otherwise plenty of police (or any other sort of police, as they have like 100 different enforcement agencies) on tracks), but I never had any issues. And once I was riding gondola up with some policeman who said he measured me around 100km/h previous run, and didn't say a thing. He said as long as people ski in control, there's no speed limit, or at least noone will ever make you problems about it. But once you ski out of control and endanger others, they do enforce it.
Things are a bit different here. First of all, it all depends where you are. For example here in Slovenia we have all mountain rescue (including first aid and rescue in ski places) free and paid by government (well actually by us taxpayers). No insurance needed, no credit card first rescue later (like in Switzerland), or no bills after rescue (like in Austria). It's free for everyone. Slovenians, or foreigners, no questions asked. There are several other countries in Europe where system is same, and then you have something like Switzerland where they ask first who will pay for rescue and once this is settled, they fly for rescue. So it all depends where you are, and somewhere you need insurance, somewhere you are perfectly fine without.
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@Idris
Good point - I suspected that this would be a law applied in the extreme not everyday e.g. plenty of refugio owners having an understanding with the local fuzz that their clientele were not to be hassled if they didn't act like dicks.
Re the insurance thing, certainly most Brits will have travel insurance of some kind (annual policies pretty reasonable despite recent departure of a number of underwriters from the market) as most of their skiing is in other countries. For Euros more generally there are variations of (national) health insurance so not sure if 3rd paty liability is bundled in anywhere perhaps in home insurance?
Good point - I suspected that this would be a law applied in the extreme not everyday e.g. plenty of refugio owners having an understanding with the local fuzz that their clientele were not to be hassled if they didn't act like dicks.
Re the insurance thing, certainly most Brits will have travel insurance of some kind (annual policies pretty reasonable despite recent departure of a number of underwriters from the market) as most of their skiing is in other countries. For Euros more generally there are variations of (national) health insurance so not sure if 3rd paty liability is bundled in anywhere perhaps in home insurance?
Switzerland NEVER asks to pay first. You get rescued, then you pay. This is how Mountain rescue works! It's the country that pays for the rescue and then bills you. They are the ones that actually pay for the private rescue companies.
Swiss ski resorts may well ask you for CC details before you leave the rescue sled, because they are fed up with people skipping town without paying up. Used to be only Americans and Brits, but now Russians etc.
Even in France where mountain rescue is free, in resort ski rescue is not. But again it's the town that bills you not the lift company. More and more resorts are asking the lift company to collect CC or even Passport (only know of Russian and USA clients) to avoid non payment.
Many of us living in Europe are members of an Alpine club, and liability + rescue insurance is part of that. In France at least there are many inexpensive <€40 options if you just need the insurance, normaly though big sports stores like Vieux Campeur.
@Idris it's has been a while since my own experience, back in time when I was serviceman in our team, and one of our guys got injured up on glacier, and at that time they wanted to know first who will pay and only then started their engines. It might have changed since then, or it was some weird coincidence at that time, so if you say it's not like this, I can believe you. After that, I never had any experience anymore with mountain rescue or ski resort rescue, and I really hope it can stay this way in future too.
But as few neighbor countries where I ski a lot, have this "insurance or pay" policy, I have insurance through Austrian Alpine club for ages already. It's something like 60eur/year (if I remember right last invoice) and it's valid everywhere and for all sports, so I rather pay that, then maybe have issues one day, when I might need them. My normal "tourist insurance" (another 80eur/year) doesn't cover anything out of ski piste (or above 3000m), so all freeride not to mention ski touring is uninsured (when it comes to SAR, medical handling after that is covered without issues), so this extra Alpine club membership and insurance is pretty much must.
But as few neighbor countries where I ski a lot, have this "insurance or pay" policy, I have insurance through Austrian Alpine club for ages already. It's something like 60eur/year (if I remember right last invoice) and it's valid everywhere and for all sports, so I rather pay that, then maybe have issues one day, when I might need them. My normal "tourist insurance" (another 80eur/year) doesn't cover anything out of ski piste (or above 3000m), so all freeride not to mention ski touring is uninsured (when it comes to SAR, medical handling after that is covered without issues), so this extra Alpine club membership and insurance is pretty much must.
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That is classic!
I got a Rega membership for Switzerland, it was like €26 for year. They cover air rescue.
Then I found out they don’t cover the Valais Canton, where Verbier is. (If you’re a Swiss citizen, they’ll get you back to Switzerland from anywhere in the world)
I think I need an Air-Zermatt membership.
I can understand why they feel that way. Happens a lot here in the US too with European tourists. They have medical emergencies, go to an ER and then skip out on the bill. My cousin is the supervising nurse at the hospital in Juneau, Alaska and she says that happens multiple times a year. Unfortunately they're not able to hold them hostage until they pay like they apparently can in the EU. The taxpayers in Juneau get stuck with the bill.
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