Think You've Got Insurance To Snorkel? Think Again.

Going on a trip? Then you'll need to make sure that if anything untoward happens, you have insurance. Fortunately there are a whole host of men and women in swanky suits on the other end of your internet connection just waiting to offer you platinum cover insurance at rock bottom prices. Just click and pay and you're covered..... It's so easy. Ah if only it were so. Any seasoned traveller will be well aware that when it comes to insurance, the devil really is in the detail or to be more precise, it's in the microscopic small print. A recent article in the British Daily Mail newspaper highlighted the fact that a great majority of “cheap” insurance policies offered by insurers really aren't worth the paper they are printed on. We all know about the problems of excess payments and the fact that most insurers don't cover “hazardous activities” such as skiing, rock climbing and diving without you paying an extra premium, but few of us are probably aware that the swanky suited insurance salesmen also won't cover you for activities such as using a jet ski or going on one of those banana boat things. The article even pointed out that some policies were voided if you hurt yourself snorkelling.

Now many people consider snorkelling a sedate, unadventurous activity, that is fun for all the family. Some companies that offer snorkelling tours even suggest that because, in its most basic form, snorkelling only requires you to float on the surface, those undertaking the activity don't even have to be able to swim. So why wouldn't an insurance company cover you for bobbing about with your face in the water? Well one reason may be that, as we have pointed out before, snorkelling companies that say you don't need to be able to swim to be able to snorkel, are full of brown smelly stuff and shouldn't be trusted with their own safety let alone that of your children or elderly grandmother. Even at it's most sedentary, there are inherent dangers in snorkelling. You can suffer severe cuts from sharp coral and rocks, you can be bashed off the same coral and rocks by wave action and suffer bumps, bruises, broken bones and fractured skulls. A great number of seemingly innocuous marine life are armed with venomous spines and barbs. And. A great many more can tear huge lumps out of you. Then of course there are those uninsured jet skiers and fat people on banana boats speeding about the place with carefree abandon. Most of whom couldn't spot a terrible haircut from three feet (mainly there own) let alone a small head bobbing around in the waves. And it doesn't stop there. Snorkellers can suffer severe sunburn, they can develop hypothermia, get dragged out to sea by strong currents and finally, even if you can swim, you can still bloody well drown.

All of these are worst case scenarios of course, but that's what insurers work on. They are taking a gamble, albeit a calculated one, that you are a sensible person who isn't going to do anything silly and therefore put yourself and their livelihood at risk. Let's face it, if insurers just went on the idea that they would insure anyone to do anything then they'd have to charge premiums so high that no one could afford them and therefore go out of business 24 hours after they started. There is another reason though and that is that insurers are not only taking a calculated risk on you not doing anything silly whilst on holiday, they're also taking a calculated risk that you will be so thrilled by the cheap cost of your insurance that, even if you could find it, you won't bother to read or for that matter, understand the small print. They didn't get those swanky suits by paying claims now did they?

So what can the average snorkeller with an average pay packet do to ensure that they have insurance cover that allows them to partake in their sporting hobby? Well here are what we call the four Cs that we use to make sure our insurance is worth the paper it's printed on.

Cheap is cheap, it doesn't mean it's any good. No insurance provider would offer gold-plated insurance at bargain basement prices. So if it's cheap it's probably rubbish – we won't touch cheap insurance. That doesn't mean that you should go out and buy an insurance policy that comes in a 14-carat, diamond encrusted cover but you should make sure it is the best you can afford and provides reasonable cover. Try to avoid any policy that doesn't provide "no excess" cover as well. It's pretty pointless if your two-thousand pound camera gets stolen and you have to stump up the first thousand pounds before the insurer begrudgingly gives you the rest.

Comprehensive is best. Make sure the cover is comprehensive. In another words it covers you for most, if not all, eventualities that can go wrong on the trip from having your wallet stolen on the beach to covering medical costs if you should have an accident. Also check that in the event of a serious accident your policy covers transfer and repatriation costs otherwise you may find yourself facing a bill that would bankrupt a small country. Finally, make sure that if you are snorkelling, diving or bouncing about on a banana boat, that the insurance provides full cover or whether you have to pay an additional premium.

Check the small print. We know that insurance cover is boring and that policy documents sometimes seem to be written in a foreign language but we cannot stress the importance of checking the details. Insurers are in the business of selling you a policy that they hope you don't need and if you do need it, they have an army of legal eagles in the background whose job is to build in clauses to the policy to prevent payouts. For instance, if you are going scuba diving you might think that you have adequate insurance since the policy highlights diving as one of the activities covered. But a quick check of the detail might reveal that you are only covered to a certain depth (usually 30m), that you must hold a valid certificate of proficiency from a bona fide diving organisation for the dive being undertaken, that all the equipment you're using is adequate and in good order for the dive, or that you are under the direct supervision of qualified diving instructor. You might also find that no insurer will cover you if you dive within 24 hours of flying or vice versa. Some insurers will also refuse cover if you dive whilst suffering from a cold, flu or obstruction of the sinuses or ears. Some insurers will also not cover anyone under the age of 12 and all will void your cover if you dive whilst suffering from any medical condition that is likely to impair your fitness to dive. And that list of conditions is very long indeed. Most general insurance companies will also not cover you for diving below 50 metres, cave diving, night dives or diving solo.

Consider single activity insurance. Many people have annual multi-trip insurance or insurance that is provided by having a specific credit card or bank account. If this is the case, check that this insurance covers you for snorkelling or diving etc. If not, you might want to consider taking out activity specific insurance. This is insurance that covers only the specific activity such as snorkelling and is additional to the insurance you already have. A number of specialist insurers will provide pretty comprehensive cover for diving, snorkelling and freediving activities anywhere in the world. If you're a member of a snorkelling or diving club, check out your governing organisations advice on insurance as most, such as B.S.A.C, will be able to point you in the right direction.

There you go, we hope these four tips help. They certainly work for us but there is one last thing you should keep in mind when buying insurance. Swanky suited salespeople are just that, salespeople in swanky suits. They are there to sell you stuff and that stuff might not be what you want or in fact what you need. So buyer beware.

British Airways And Iberia Express – An Inconvenient Truth For Your Underwear.

Some say that flying is still romantic, still exhilarating, still the high-life. Others waffle on about the journey being as much a part of the experience as the destination. This may be true if you don’t mind standing in queues for no apparent reason, being subject to intrusive security checks by guards who can barely dress themselves, eating plastic food from plastic containers and generally being herded hither and thither by airline staff who are so orange you worry their liver is about to explode. However, if none of the former appeal, we suspect that like us, the act of travelling by air is a complete pain in the rectum. We have just returned from the island of La Palma in the Canaries (we will be posting photos, videos and more on La Palma in the coming weeks). The Canary Isles, you have to agree, is not exactly the most far-flung destination one can imagine visiting. Yet, the whole process of getting from London to La Palma and back again has been one of the most irritating travel experiences ever. Due to the dates we needed to travel on, we were unable to get a direct flight. So on a dreary Thursday, at the ridiculous hour of 5:30am, we arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5) for our British Airways flight to Madrid. From Madrid we would connect to an Iberia Express flight to La Palma. We queued, as you do, at check-in for what seemed an eternity before being ushered forward by a smiling orange-faced queue handler. Here, we did what normal sane people do and clarified with the check-in agent that our bags would be checked all the way through to La Palma and then inquired if the flight was on time and that no delays were envisaged - we had a connection to make and we didn’t want to miss it. The girl on the desk gave a sigh and smiled at us in much the same way a frustrated teacher might smile at a particularly stupid group of pupils. Of course the bags would be checked all the way through, the check-in girl insisted, after all British Airways and Iberia have merged and are, for all intents and purposes, the same airline. As for delays, the check-in girl gave us another dismissive smile and informed us that we had two hours in Madrid, which would be plenty of time wouldn’t it? Oddly we believed her. Her face was the same colour as her arms for one thing and she seemed very certain that all was fine. This sort of certainty, for the seasoned traveller, normally starts alarm bells ringing, but it was early and we were still half asleep so we accepted her reassurances. Then it was off to security. Belts off, cameras on, laptops and tablets in the tray; no liquids, no creams, no lotions and definitely no sarcastic remarks, otherwise the men and women who failed to pass the Burger King recruitment test will take delight in frisking you roughly and delving with Neolithic carelessness through your personals.

Finally we entered the inner sanctum of T5. This is the home of British Airways, it’s their palace, their crowning glory, and it is quite dreadful.  T5 has apparently won awards for being the best terminal in the world. Who exactly runs these awards? T5 looks as if it was designed by someone who was obsessed with Meccano and wants their parents to see how very, very clever they’ve been. “Look mum. Look at how I held the roof up with these sloping struts! It’s like I’ve created a class and steel circus big top isn’t it? Look at the joints and the windows and the shiny doors and the stairs and just everything”. Perhaps the parents are indeed impressed, to us however, it just looks unfinished. The dull metal fixtures compete for the world dullness award with dull flooring, which in turn competes with the dull decoration. All are outdone though by the dull looks on the dull people who staff the very, very, dull shops and cafes. In short T5 is dullness times a thousand, which is very dull indeed – but we digress.

It was now 7.00am. The flight was supposed to depart at 7:30 and we arrived at the allotted gate at the time indicated by the information displays. 7:10 came and went, as did 7:20 and oddly 7:30. We began to worry. The flight to Madrid would take two hours and if we didn’t leave soon our “plenty of time” to make our connection would quickly become “no time at all”. Finally, at 7:50, a voice that sounded like an asthmatic talking through a pillow bing-bonged onto the tannoy. We had no idea what was said, but like everyone else at the gate we assumed that boarding would soon commence so we joined the quickly forming queue and waited. And waited. And waited some more, whilst non-existent First Class, Executive Club, Platinum Club, Executive Platinum Premier Club and Business Club passengers were invited to board first. British Airways appears to have more clubs than a caveman’s conference. At last at 8:20 we took our seats on-board and argued amongst ourselves about whether we’d make our connection. At 08:30 the Captain made an apologetic announcement for the delay and explained that it was all due to an administrative error. What an administrative error meant was anyone’s guess. Perhaps someone had handed air traffic control their dry cleaning receipt rather than a flight plan or maybe it was just airline speak for “we’re a bit crap at this flying lark”. Whatever the reason we took off an hour and ten minutes late and we all agreed the trip had got off to a bad start.

We arrived at Madrid with forty minutes to spare, which quickly dwindled to thirty as the aircraft taxied to furthest reaches of the earth. The plane door opened and with uncharacteristic rudeness we thrust our way to the front and were off and running. We ran up escalators, down escalators, along marathon length corridors and onto a terminal shuttle that travelled slower than a snail with cramp. We held up our passports and swotted grumpy immigration officials aside, shoved security officials out of the way with surprising ease, and with lungs bursting and legs aching we made the connection. Unfortunately our bags didn’t. The baggage agent at La Palma gave the usual apologies and asked us what our bags looked like. Perhaps it was frustration or perhaps it was just rage at an airline that can’t transfer bags between flights in thirty minutes when the passengers, us! Can run non-stop for twenty-five minutes, navigate through security bureaucracy and generally be forced to act without consideration for our other passengers in order to make the flight that we snapped and in unison screamed: “They’re bags, they have handles on them, you carry belongings in them and more importantly they have got your bloody airline baggage tag on”! Suffices to say this didn’t have any affect, clearly this baggage agent was more than used to being shouted at. Paperwork was filled out, tracking codes issued and dismissive smiles exchanged but in the end twenty-four hours of the trip were wasted before our bags containing our wetsuits; fins, masks and underwear finally arrived.

Bad luck you might say. Bags get delayed all the time etc and lightening doesn’t strike twice. Well you’d be wrong. Lightening does sometimes strike twice and it did. Our return flight from La Palma to Madrid was due to leave at 14:55. It left at 15:35. Again on arrival the aircraft taxied half way to France before stopping and again we had to hurtle up and down escalators, onto the snail shuttle, through passport control and security and again we made the connection with minutes to spare and again our bags didn’t. The baggage agent at Heathrow was as hardened to our rage as her Spanish colleague at La Palma. BA and Iberia must mishandle a great many bags, as not a single member of staff in either country is remotely concerned about their passengers’ plight. Again we had to fill out forms and describe our bags and again a very unapologetic apology was offered and again with seething rage at the inconvenience we went on our away. 

Now some of you will no doubt say, so what? Just claim on your insurance or from the airline. But this misses the point. For one thing the airline knows the bags were delayed, they told us. They knew where they were and they knew what flight they’d be arriving on. In short why does anyone need to make a claim, the airline should accept that they have deprived their customers of their personal belongings and compensate there and then. A £100 or 100 Euros up front would be a start. Secondly airlines say they will only compensate for essentials, but essentials are open to interpretation. Some people think Marks and Spencer’s underwear is an acceptable essential others wouldn’t be seen dead in anything less the Dolce & Gabbana - quite literally. So what exactly is essential? Do you buy the most expensive deodorant because you like it, or the cheapest because you know the airline will argue that smelling of something cheap and musky is essentially better than smelling of sweat, and much better than smelling nice at their expense!

Thirdly there is the issue of making the claim itself, a long laborious task that most of us suspect is designed to deter the claimant in the first place. There is also a principle at stake here. We refuse to have some bean counter in a shiny suit decide how much our misery and inconvenience is worth. The loss of our twenty-four hours in La Palma cannot be measured simply in pounds and pence. And we refuse to wear I LOVE LA PALMA t-shirts, nasty underwear and cheap deodorant just because they are the “essentials”. In short, we don’t want a meaningless apology, nor are we interested in selective compensation we simply want our bags. How does an airline mishandle the bags in the first place anyway? If BA and Iberia expect passengers to burst a lung making a connection due to earlier delays on their other flights, the least that we passengers can expect is that they do the same to ensure that our bags make it onto the same flight. After all we’re the customers and we entered into a deal – you fly us, and our luggage, to our destination at the same time and in exchange we’ll give you cash. If you can’t do this, let us carry larger items in the cabin. BA isn’t going go do that though, in fact they are talking about reducing cabin baggage – so there will be more luggage for the baggage pixies to play hide and seek with. Of course there is an alternative and that is not to fly with BA or Iberia again and guess what? We won’t be.

Update: it’s twenty-four hours since we arrived back at Heathrow and do you know what’s happened? Yep. Nothing. We’re still waiting for our bags and according to the BA baggage helpline; they are experiencing a large volume of calls at the moment. Now there’s a surprise.