Every year, millions of people go skiing around the world, and despite the wide availability of cheap ski travel insurance there are still many who travel without full cover. There are plenty of things that go wrong on a skiing holiday, ranging from injury and equipment loss to bad weather and cancellation costs, and while it’s easy to say “it won’t happen to me”, you can face enormous costs if run into trouble without insurance. Here are five good reasons why you should invest in some decent ski travel insurance before your next trip abroad.

You have to cancel your holiday…

Your flights are booked, your accommodation is sorted, and you are ready to go – but something forces you to cancel the trip. It could be an illness or death in the family, a sudden patch of bad weather at your destination that renders travel impossible, or one of a dozen other reasons. If this happens, you’d better have good insurance; a skiing holiday can be an expensive event to cancel at the last minute, but ski travel insurance will cover your cancellation costs.

You are injured…

The danger of skiing is part of the thrill for many, but it could be a costly thrill if you don’t have insurance. If you are in Europe, your E111 card will only provide you with a discount on healthcare, and often medical treatment will take place at the ski lodge’s private clinic, where the E111 will not help at all. If you are in Canada or America, your medical bills could be enormous – an uninsured skier can expect to pay up to £25,000 to treat a broken leg in the USA. Even cheap ski travel insurance will provide you with significant cover for medical costs, and it is well worth paying for.

The slopes are closed by bad weather…

Nothing is more frustrating than being kept off the slopes by bad weather while on a skiing holiday, but insurance can at least help lessen the damage to your wallet. Most ski travel insurance will reimburse your costs if you can’t ski for two or more days due to bad weather, covering the cost of lift passes, ski school fees, and any other expenses you suffer.

You lose your equipment…

There is always the chance that you will misplace some of your equipment while on a skiing holiday, through loss, damage or even theft. Good quality skiing equipment can cost plenty to replace, so make sure that your ski travel insurance will fully cover the value of anything that you take.

You need to be rescued…

Whether it is through injury, bad weather, broken equipment or an off-piste adventure gone wrong, there’s always the danger that you’ll find yourself stuck on the slopes. This happens more often than you’d think – over 50,000 skiers a year are rescued from the French Alps alone. With the total cost of a helicopter rescue running at around £4000, if it happens and you aren’t covered, you’ll wish that you’d invested in some cheap ski travel insurance!