The list of surf trip costs is endless, from flight tickets to accommodation, transport, food, travel gear, and a new board or two if we’re lucky, and that’s not to mention any coaching and extra activities. But one thing often overlooked, particularly on a budget surf trip, is surf travel insurance—an annoying additional cost but one that is just as essential as your plane ticket.
We’re all guilty of it, right? “Ahhh, it’ll be fine; I won’t need insurance; that would be a waste if nothing goes wrong.” On surf trips, everything is, and hopefully will be, fine until it isn’t. Surf trips, by nature, are unpredictable, and there are countless opportunities for things to go awry.
But when things go to sh*t, they go to sh*t very quickly, and paradisical dreams can turn into life-threatening nightmares in seconds. If you’ve got no cover to back yourself up in emergencies, then you not only put yourself in a dangerous (and potentially life-threatening) situation but under a mountain of debt you’ll be paying back for years to come.
However, with a small pre-trip payment, you can prevent such situations and give yourself the peace of mind you won’t finish the trip with a $10,000 medical bill, injured or stranded. Surf travel insurance can also cover you for other surf trip mishaps, such as delayed flights and lost or stolen baggage. In this article, we dive into everything you need to know about surf travel insurance, from what to look for, the essential criteria, why you need it, and the best companies to buy policies from. We have a heap to get through, so let’s dive in.
Table of Contents
Why Do You Need Surf Travel Insurance?
If you’ve been on a surf trip, you won’t need me to tell you how many things can and inevitably will go wrong. From severe injuries and emergency evacuations to stolen boards and delayed flights, surf travel insurance helps you in countless ways:
- Serious Injury
- Death
- Minor surf accidents
- Traffic collisions (Bali mopeds)
- Delayed flights
- Broken surf equipment
- Lost or stolen baggage
- Natural disaster
But while the list of potential surf travel mishaps is long, not all surf travel insurance companies cover these things. Instead, you’ll have to look at specific policies to see what is and isn’t covered on your respective policy. Always check your policy wording carefully, and no matter what insurance you get, here are the essential criteria for any surf travel insurance policy.
Essential Surf Travel Insurance Criteria
Medical Expenses
This is the big one. Medical expense coverage is crucial for any surf trip. Whether going on a mellow longboarding vacation to Sri Lanka or chasing slabs deep in the Australian desert, medical expenses cover your medical bill should you get injured.
For example, if you’ve fallen off and hit the reef at Ulutwau, gotten cut up, and potentially broken a bone, you need to go to the hospital to get checked out and have a cast put on. That doesn’t come free for foreigners in Indonesia. With medical expenses covered by your policy, you can get the care you need without worrying about paying for it immediately.
To hammer the importance of this home, I was once on a surf trip to Lakey Peak, Sumabwa, a relatively remote Indonesian surf paradise. One day we were eating lunch, and a surfer was being paddled in from the surf, having badly broken his leg and needing urgent medical attention and pain relief. His friends informed us, and everyone else at the camp, he was an American with no travel insurance!
They did a whip round to get as much money together as possible, which I’m sure didn’t completely cover the cost of his hospital transfer and treatment. This is exactly the situation you want to avoid, and for the sake of a few extra dollars, it’s stupid not to get insurance.
Medical Evacuation
For serious injuries and life-threatening situations, medical evacuation insurance is needed. Hopefully, you’ll never need this, but when you do, you’ll be super thankful you had it! Let’s say you’re on a surf trip to the Mentawaiis (if you’ve been there, you’ll know how frickin remote it is). You get a head or spinal injury from hitting the shallow reef and need urgent care.
The closest hospital is Padang–usually a 4-hour boat trip, but you need a helicopter to airlift you to the hospital in Padang. Padang isn’t the biggest city, and if the hospital there isn’t equipped to deal with your injury, you’ll need to be transferred to Singapore or Kuala Lumpur! Yep, that’s a lot of flying, and costs soon rack up. Medical evacuation covers these costs essential.
Personal Liability
Another vital aspect of your surf travel insurance coverage is personal liability. In short, this means an injury you cause to someone else. It doesn’t matter how good a surfer you are in crowded line-ups; it only takes a misread of an oncoming section to run over someone. Personal liability coverage helps cover their medical expenses if you injure or seriously hurt them. This is essential for helping them get the care they need (regardless of their insurance) and gives you the peace of mind of not having to pay for their medical expenses.
What Does Surf Insurance Typically Cover?
What’s covered in your insurance policy will depend on who you purchase cover with, and not all policies will cover the same thing. For example, you’ll want to cover bases such as medical expenses, evacuation, and personal liability, but often things such as baggage delays, damage to equipment, trip cancellations, etc., are things you buy as extras on top of your policy. Well worth considering.
Types of Surf Travel Insurance
For surf travel insurance, there isn’t a specific company that operates as a sole surf travel insurance provider. Therefore, you must look for extreme sport and adventure travel companies that offer surfing insurance. These companies provide travel insurance for backpackers traveling long term (6 months +), extreme sports such as snowboarding, watersports, bungee jumping, and skydiving. Additionally, many of these companies have dedicated website pages for surf travel insurance.
Best Companies for Surf Travel Insurance
I’ve taken countless surf travel insurance policies out in my time but generally return to the same two. These top two companies are the best for dealing with surf travel, whether it’s offering a surf-specific policy, making a claim, or getting insurance that can be extended if you want to extend a surf trip. Let’s take a closer look at my top two.
World Nomads
World Nomads is a favorite for backpackers and surf trippers, offering insurance policies that cover a wide range of extreme sports and daring backpacker activities. If you’re heading on a gap year and throwing surfing in there or want to cover for your next surf trip, World Nomads will have a policy for you. But, by far, my favorite aspect of World Nomads insurance is the ability to extend your policy while you’re away. I often go on extended 6-month + surf ventures, and if I want to stay longer, I can simply contact World Nomads and extend my policy. Pretty cool, right?
GIG Insurance
GIG Insurance caters to extreme sports and adventure travel, from bungee jumping to snowboarding, Scuba diving, skydiving, and surfing. You’ll need to take out coverage and then add surfing as an activity to your policy. My favorite aspect of GIG insurance is that you can talk to a representative over the phone who can tailor a policy according to your travel plans!
Making a Claim: Does it Pay & Is it Worth it?
Yes and no. This will depend on your exact policy. Generally, the more you pay and the more extensive your coverage, the more likely the company will pay out. For instance, if you’ve got a policy including extras such as trip cancellation or damage to equipment, you can make a claim and receive money to cover this. However, it’s always important to read your policy wording carefully. If you have a basic plan with no extras, you’ll unlikely be covered for anything other than the essentials (medical evacuation, etc.)
It’s also worth considering that many of these policies come with premiums, meaning if you claim, they will only pay a maximum (not the total amount of your broken surfboard). You’ll have to pay a deductible from that amount. So, always weigh up whether a claim is worth it. And this can also affect what you pay for your following policy. Just think of your insurance as covering emergencies, and if you never have to use it, great! And if you do, you’re covered and can focus on recovery.
Final Words
It’s no doubt that surf travel insurance is essential. You’d be silly to go on a surf trip without it. I’ve seen it too many times, meeting surf travelers in remote Indonesian islands thinking having no insurance makes them a gnarlier budget surf traveler, which is all good until you’re helping the same person with a broken leg and a $10,000 medical bill. So, at the bare minimum, get yourself some insurance that covers the following:
- Medical expenses
- Medical evacuation
- Personal liability
Also, consider adding extras that give you peace of mind, such as baggage delay, trip cancellation, baggage damage, etc. Hopefully, you’ll never need to make a claim on any of your surf trips but get insured anyway, have peace of mind, and enjoy your trip!
