BC skiing and life insurance

Hope this isn't coming across as morbid, but does life insurance pay out if you die skiing the BC? From what I've been able to glean the answer is no if the trip was a regular part of your recreation and you were well aware that it held inherent dangers. This is because to get the policy you need to claim you don't regularly do any inherently dangerous sports, and BC skiing fits the terms set forth for inherently dangerous.

But if you strayed out of bounds in the fog, or on a lark, or duh-just-followed-tracks the policy pays? Anbody know for sure? I want my next of kin to know what to say if my number comes up out of bounds, and I'm intuiting that "he had a lot of experience in the BC" is not as good as "I have no idea why he went out there, never did anything like that before."

Thx, and yes I know getting out of bed is inherently dangerous, looking for legal/realist answers over philosophical.

I have found that different underwriters ask different questions during the application process, and not all ask specifically about different types of skiing like heli or bc.

I wouldn't assume your policy covers you unless you have asked the question of your agent / carrier.

I went through this process about 2 years ago and discovered it's not easy. As a climber and bc skier I found that most carriers either would not offer a policy or wanted to charge 4x the normal rate. My insurance broker was no help. I finally found it through my professional association (American Society of Civil Engineers) as well as a smaller policy through AAA. You have to be an engineer to join ASCE, so that may not help you. I recommend answering all the questions honestly or they may not pay out if they can show you lied on the application. You have to keep searching until you find a carrier that is comfortable with you lifestyle. Good luck.

thanks for the advice -- need to take a look at my policy.

It occurs to me that whatever the case the likely best move for next of kin is to talk to a lawyer before talking to anyone else.

Back when I wrote life insurance policies there were specific questions regarding high risk pursuits like mountain climbing and sky diving. Answer honestly. There is a period of contestability, typically 2 years. Once beyond this, you may do yourself in any way you please, whether climbing, ski touring or even suicide and the insurer should pay.

I have a lot of experience with this (shopping for life insurance, not getting paid when I die).

You'll be covered so long as you don't lie about it. If you lie, you have to wait two years before planning your backcountry-related death. Policies have an "incontestability clause" that makes them pay out no matter what after you've held them for two years.

Per the earlier post, you can lie and take your chances. If you die within two years after the policy while participating in a higher-risk activity like backcountry skiing (or climbing, or motocross, or skydiving...) the insurance company will probably conduct an inquiry and deny the claim based on your misrepresentation. But if you can avoid dying for two years you're covered. Insurers are betting that people interested in life insurance are probably concerned enough about dying and covering their expenses for other living relatives that they aren't in a position to gamble for a two-year period.

I'm not sure what the likelihood of the insurance denying your claim if you died in a non-high-risk manner, like a car accident...perhaps they would simply pay out as expected. But they would have a legal right to contest the claim due to your misrepresentation no matter what the cause of death.

What I did was tell the truth and had to pay a special "risk premium" (life-insurance-speak for F&^% you, we don't want to insure you really unless you pay us a lot) of $5 per $1,000 insured value. That worked out to over $100 a month for a lousy quarter-million in insurance, but I paid it because that would be a lot better for my family than nothing if I were gone.

You should know that once you enter the insurance game the deck is stacked against you in terms of lies big or small. The insurance companies submit all your information to a data clearinghouse (this is all legal because you agree to it when you apply for insurance). That database can be accessed by other insurers who you apply to. So once a detail like high-risk activities is in your file, it's there for good. There is technically some way you can contest the contents of your file and have it removed but they've made it about as difficult as you would think.

What I've done, though, is pick up little bits of insurance here and there. A professional organization (like the above post) sent me an offer for a $100,000 policy and I just filled it out and sent it in--they approved me with no questions asked. The lower the amount you apply for the less likely you are to trigger an interview or audit, and I got lucky. I didn't have to consider lying because they never asked! I tried the same with another offer I got in the mail and they gave me a more detailed screen-my quote came back for about the same per $1,000 as my original policy, but I was able to purchase only $100,000 of that one so I saved a fair bit.

Finally, I was able to apply for life insurance up to my annual salary through my work. Being a fairly small amount this didn't trigger any audit or interview so again I got lucky. I canceled my first policy and I'm paying a lot less for the same amount of coverage. It took about a year--you don't want to apply for a bunch of small policies all at once because that will send up a flag, too!

Good luck! Timmy