Ask crazy legs…..I think he had his money’s worth out of his insurance….
And right on cue…
Yes, Direct Line paid out about £20,000 for an airlift off a Swiss Alp, two nights in a Swiss hospital (great nurses, shit food) and a private air ambulance flight back to the UK.
And yes, I did need it, I had a fractured pelvis and EasyJet wouldn’t take me in that condition!
Not having insurance would mean I’d still be paying the bill now. Almost all insurance companies do travel insurance (not just the specialist ones like Snowcard), just make sure you specify MTBing. IIRC my one-trip policy with Direct Line cost me something like £35 (this was quite a few years ago, may have gone up substantially since then…)
Also, in America we were told to have our passport and insurance documents on us all the time we were biking, rumours abounding that they wouldn’t even pick you off the trail if you weren’t insured.