Amazingly Easy Life Insurance for Skydivers
Life Insurance is an essential element in the life of any person regardless of their age. However, there are so many variables that govern the type of life insurance that a person can have. For instance, if you frequently participate in hazardoussports whether professionally or for recreation purposes, you would probably have to use a different approach towards buying life insurance.
Today, hazardous sports are a significant consideration for writing insurance policies. Most insurance companies have provisions for customers who engage in dangerous sports. For instance, you may ask, “does skydiving void life insurance?”Here, we discuss the various aspects of life insurance for skydivers.
Overview
If you are a skydiver, you might automatically believe that you cannot buy life insurance. As part of your skydiving activity,you will be jumping out of planes on a regular basis which could lead to disastrous results. Does skydiving affect life insurance?If so, in what way? Fortunately,for a person with that kind of a profile, there are provisions wherein you don’t have to be automatically disqualified from being eligible for life insurance based on your hazardous activities. You can still get skydiving life insurance or parachute insurance as it is also called.
Does skydiving affect insurance? Life insurance companies will calculate the risk and provide skydiving accident insurance accordingly. For example, the more frequently you do skydiving, the higher will be your premiums. Hence, if you do say, more than a hundred jumps,by way of example, you would be charged over and above regular premiums, a ‘flat extra’ of $7.50. However, this is not a flat rate for any amount of coverage but rather for a particular slab like say,you would probably have to pay another $7.50 for each subsequent thousand dollars of coverage.
Skydiving Versus Risk Factor
Why does a person skydive? What creates the urge to jump out of a moving airplane in freefall, plummeting towards the earth at 200kilometres per hour or more? The answer to this question is more related to freedom and the sense of thrill that you feel in those freefall moments. The description of skydiving as given above would seem extremely risky to the uninitiated.However, it may surprise you that with increased safety measures today skydiving as a sport has improved its safety record in leaps and bounds.
Due to improvedtechnology,skydiving has become a much safer activity then it was 50 years ago.The United States Parachute Association(USPA) reports that in the 1970s there was an average of 42.5 fatalities each year. In 2013, 0.067 deaths per thousand USPA members were reported. In 2017, the USPA reported 24 Skydiving fatalities in the United States out of approximately 3.2 million jumps the lowest in the history of sports today.
The above statistics have also influenced the waylife insurance companies look at skydiving today. With a reduced risk factor, it has become anaccepted activity,although still considered as hazardous and various technicalities can reduce premiums for skydiving insurance for skydivers.
If you approach an insurance company directly for buying life insurance with ‘hazardous activity’ ticked, you could well end up in paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars as a monthly premium. Therefore, it is always advisable to approach a competent insurance agent who will take of all your details and get you the best rates possible, thereby saving you a lot of money as well as the time that you would have spent shopping around for a reasonable price.
A Useful Strategy
If you find that your skydiving life insurance is coming out to be extremely expensive, you could consider buying two policies, one that excludes skydiving and the other that doesn’t. That way,your beneficiaries will receive only one death benefit in case of death due to skydiving, but they will get both the benefits in the case of death from any other cause other than skydiving.
Life Insurance Companies’ Take on Skydiving
Different companies will view your skydiving activities differently. Above, we gave you an idea of how a ‘flat extra’ works based on a particular scenario, but it is possible that many life insurance companies could charge you much more. To give you a clear picture of how life insurance companies charge on a skydiving insurance policy, we have put together a bit of information on the ‘flat extra’ that you can expect to be charged from various life insurance carriers:
50 jumps or less (assuming that you do not participate in skydiving professionally):
$2.50 flat extra
- Assurity
- AXA, Banner
- Fidelity
- John Hancock
- Prudential
$3.00 flat extra
- American General
- Genworth
- ING
- Lincoln Benefit
- Lincoln Financial
- MetLife
- Minnesota Life
- Mutual of Omaha
- Nationwide
- Principal
- Protective
- SBLI
Note:
- There is a flat extra of $5.00 for all club members in all the above examples.
- 51-100 jumps per year will attract a $5 flat extra.
- 100-200 jumps per year (assuming that you do not participate in skydiving professionally) will attract a $7.50 flat extra.
- 200+ jumps per year (considering you are not a club member or participate in skydiving professionally) will be a $10.00 flat extra in the case of some companies.
- Non-club members will be automatically declined in all cases.
Please also understand that these figures are only indicative and may vary slightly from the actual premiums that you may finally have to pay for skydiving accident insurance to a particular life insurance company,
Other Critical Information
Companies will also ask a lot of questions about the nature of your skydiving for instance, whether you do base jumping, stunts, record attempts or if you are into experimental skydiving. Life insurance companies will carefully assess the risk factor based on the exact nature of your skydiving activity. You need to be very specific while answering questions related to these particular activities to avoid disappointment later.
You may wonder if you have an existing life insurance policy and if you take up skydiving at a later date,does skydiving void life insurance? The answer to this question is no,but do pay your premiums regularly to prevent your policy from lapsing. You may have to answer ‘yes’ to skydiving under the section for hazardous sports questions when you have to get your life insurance policy reinstated which will lead to an increase in your premiums.
Another commonly asked question is that whether you participated in skydiving on a few isolated instances but do not have any plans to do it again, would you still be considered as a skydiver? You will not be considered as a skydiver, however, ensure that you document this fact on the application and keep your insurance agent informed of it.
If you are a skydiver but you would still like to have an insurance policy from life insurance companies who exclude skydiving from coverage thereby avoiding the flat extra, here are a few companies that will provide such a plan to you:
- American General
- Banner Life
- Lincoln Benefit
- MetLife
- Nationwide
- Principal
In conclusion, here are the key points:
- Most companies will charge you an additional amount called a ‘flat extra.’
- Flat extras can be of ‘preferred health classification’, or they can be of ‘standard classification’(more expensive).
- If you are a skydiver and you blindly apply for a life insurance policy, you may end up paying for a highly expensive policy.
- Rather than applying directly for life insurance if you are a skydiver, you would be best advised to approach the matter through a competent life insurance agent.