Hitting the ski slopes? You may need to equip yourself with season-pass insurance
January 19th, 2012
Brittany Hutson
You’ve been preparing for months to hit the slopes. You’ve got your season pass in hand, and you’ve bought new skis and new skiwear. But then you break your collarbone. You’ll be out of commission — and off the slopes — for a few months.
While you’ll have to skip snow skiing for the season, all hope may not be lost. Many ski resorts now offer season-pass insurance. This insurance protects season-pass holders in case of an unexpected illness, injury or tragedy. Some resorts have done away with issuing season-pass refunds in favor of season-pass insurance.
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| Season-pass insurance could give you a financial lift if you find yourself unable to go skiing. |
This insurance is sold by ski resorts for a percentage (usually about 6 percent) of the total ski-pass price. It’s also available directly from travel insurance company Travel Guard; the cost is $ 20 for adults and $ 10 for children. The insurance is valid for one year or one annual ski season, and provides reimbursement for ski passes up to $ 600 for when a trip is canceled or interrupted.
Among the circumstances when season-pass insurance would kick in are:
• An injury or illness that prevents the insured person from skiing.
• A family member of the insured skier gets injured, becomes sick or dies.
• The main residence of the insured skier becomes uninhabitable because of a natural disaster, vandalism or burglary.
• The insured skier is required to serve on a jury.
• The insured skier loses his job or has to relocate for his job.
• The insured skier must report for military service.
• The insured skier becomes pregnant.
Aspen Skiing Co. operates four ski areas in Colorado — Snowmass, Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk. It’s been offering season-pass insurance since 2003. During the 2010-11 season, nearly 18 percent of season-pass holders bought insurance, says Jeff Hanle, a spokesman for Aspen Skiing. If an Aspen Skiing season-pass holder doesn’t buy the insurance, he’s not eligible for a pass refund.
Resorts that have season-pass insurance generally have strict policies on refunds or don’t provide refunds at all.
“You get many stories or reasons every year as to why each person feels they should get a refund,” Hanle says. “Insurance makes it more black and white. It takes the subjectivity out of the equation.”
If you have season-pass insurance and aren’t able to ski, most properties that offer this type of coverage will prorate the value of your pass to determine the refund amount.
“If a guest has skied a few times and is now unable to use the pass, the guest can file a claim for the unused portion of the pass,” says Janet Janssen, director of property management at Travel Guard. “Each property will determine the value of the ski days used and then determine the unused value of the pass.”
During the 2011-12 ski season, the Ski Maine Association, a trade group, is offering season-pass insurance for the first time. The Travel Guard coverage costs roughly $ 27 if you buy a $ 450 Mountain pass or $ 16 if you buy a $ 250 Sampler pass. Premiums are based on the cost of the ticket.
The Ski Maine Association sells a maximum of 250 season passes each ski season. Season-pass refunds aren’t available without insurance, says Greg Sweetser, executive director of the association.
According to the National Ski Areas Association, a trade group for ski resort owners and operators, season-pass holders accounted for 36 percent of resort visits during the 2010-11 ski season. That was up 2 percent from 2009-10.
Tamara E. Holmes
Think you can maintain your perfect driving record as long as you limit your speeding tickets to other states? Not so fast. Most states not only will share information about traffic violations with your home state, but your home state may even deliver its own punishment.
“You can run but you cannot hide,” says Kevin Lewis, director of driver programs for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.
And you probably can’t hide that out-of-state ticket from your auto insurance company, either.
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| Generally, you can’t hide from an out-of-state traffic ticket — especially if it’s a serious traffic violation. |
Recognizing that reckless driving can be harmful no matter where it takes place, most states have joined the Driver License Compact. Under this agreement, 45 states and the District of Columbia send information about out-of-state traffic violators to a driver’s home state. Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Michigan and Wisconsin aren’t members of the compact. However, some of those non-members often exchange information as if they were part of the compact.
Meanwhile, the Nonresident Violator Compact is designed to ensure that drivers don’t return home and leave behind unpaid traffic tickets in other states. Under this arrangement, if an out-of-town driver doesn’t comply with the punishment for a traffic ticket, his or her home state would be alerted and the home state would begin license suspension proceedings. Forty-four states and the District of Columbia are members; only Alaska, California, Montana, Oregon, Michigan and Wisconsin are not.
In the past, neighboring states often would come up with their own agreements for sharing information about out-of-state traffic citations. For example, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia devised an agreement back in the 1960s, as did New York, New Jersey and other states in the region. However, widespread acceptance of the two compacts has wiped out the need for regional agreements.
Serious infractions harder to conceal
For the most part, states don’t care much about minor traffic violations, such as parking or standing infractions. So an out-of-state parking ticket or a citation issued for a broken taillight is not likely to be sent to your home state.
However, the more serious the infraction, the more likely it will follow you wherever you go. Not only must you worry about the two compacts, but the National Driver Register — a database run by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — keeps track of drivers who’ve had their driving privileges suspended, revoked, cancelled or denied. The database includes drivers who are guilty of serious traffic violations such as DWI.
Whenever a driver applies for a license or seeks to renew it, state motor vehicle departments check the database for infractions, which then can be attached to your driving record and can be used to deny driving privileges, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
State rules differ
What states do with information about residents’ out-of-state traffic violations varies from place to place. Some states add only certain types of violations to a resident’s driving record. For example, a state that records only those speeding violations for driving 20 miles per hour over the limit might not flag an out-of-state citation for driving 10 mph over the limit.
States also vary in how out-of-state infractions affect a driver’s record. For example, New Jersey assesses two points on residents’ driving records for all out-of-state moving violations. On the other hand, New York does not tack points onto a driver’s record for out-of-state traffic violations unless those violations occurred in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
Some states may even withdraw your driving privileges for major violations in other states. For example, Wisconsin will suspend privileges for such out-of-state infractions as DWI, attempting to elude an officer and hit-and-run.
Out-of-state tickets and auto insurance
Of course, one of the biggest questions that drivers want answered is: Will an out-of-state ticket cause insurance premiums to rise? The answer depends on several factors:
• Whether your state adds that type of infraction to your driving record.
• The insurance laws in your state. For example, according to New York traffic attorneys Scott Feifer and Matthew Greenberg, citations for speeding up to 15 miles per hour over the limit shouldn’t harm your insurance rates.
• Your insurer’s practices when it comes to checking driving records. The more often your insurer checks driving records, the more likely you’ll soon face an increase. “Those serious violations could definitely have an effect on someone’s insurance rate if the insurance company pulls that driver’s record,” Lewis says.
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