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 Post subject: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: May 26th, 2022, 6:33 pm 
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Joined: October 25th, 2020, 3:18 pm
Posts: 59
Bought a personal locator beacon. In doing the PLB research, some sites mentioned supplementary insurance to cover search and rescue costs. The only website I could find that devotes some discussion to the topic was:
https://www.caaquebec.com/en/for-your-i ... -big-bill/

Since it's trying to sell me insurance, it's not the most reliable source. Still, interesting to learn that Sepaq does not cover SAR costs in its parks, but Parks Canada does.

The next trip I have in mind is Temagami, but am also interested for tripping in ON and QC in general. In the event of a rescue, is there, in fact, risk of incurring significant costs necessitating the purchase of additional insurance?

Thanks in advance for any info!


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 Post subject: Re: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: May 30th, 2022, 7:29 am 
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I think the answer is "it depends." If you are an Ontario resident with an OHIP card, air ambulance is free -- Otherwise maybe $12,000 is one number I've seen. If you are rescued by a federal resource -- free no matter who you are. If you are rescued by a commercial resource, I think you an expect to be billed.

The SAR insurance offered by SPOT and others is so cheap that many of us just take it. One less thing to worry about. I don't want to have to argue with trip participants about an extraction because someone is worried about the expense.


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 Post subject: Re: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: May 30th, 2022, 12:50 pm 
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Joined: September 15th, 2006, 5:09 pm
Posts: 231
Location: Toronto, ON
Do they offer similar insurance for inReach?
So far I was under impression that people already stopped buying PLBs and SPOTs.


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 Post subject: Re: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: May 30th, 2022, 4:24 pm 
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Yeah, one of these days I will update to an In-Reach of the SPOT version of the same thing. The extraction insurance is from Global Overwatch and Rescue and costs $25 US a year. I'm pretty sure that it's available to most other devices as well.

I don't know why people would not have some sort of beacon or a sat phone. The cost is so minimal compared to other trip costs that it would be hard to explain after the fact why Billy died when you could have called for the helicopter.


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 Post subject: Re: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: June 1st, 2022, 2:19 pm 
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Joined: November 2nd, 2008, 11:15 pm
Posts: 234
Location: Collingwood Ontario
In Ontario the OPP SAR service is free (I know this from personal experience). If it is a town fire department, it depends on the town. In the Town of the Blue Mountains rock climbers got hit with a bill of several thousand, just to be packed out form the base of the cliff. Next door in the town of Clearview a climber stuck in an crack near the edge of the escarpment was rescued for free. The $45,000 cost was covered by the local fire department, even though they had to call in experts from Toronto Fire to get him out. So it is a mixed bag. I agree the insurance is cheap and worth it, even though it is not likely needed.

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shearjoy Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. Thich Nhat Hanh



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 Post subject: Re: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: June 4th, 2022, 7:19 am 
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Joined: October 25th, 2020, 3:18 pm
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Thank you all for the information. Much appreciated. Looks like if there were any addtional costs from a SAR, my group insurance through work would cover it. They confirmed with me that the following clause is applicable in this situation:

Medical Transportation

The medical assistance service provider will:

o Arrange and pay for the transportation or transfer of the Insured Person by appropriate means to a Hospital as recommended by the attending Physician, and which the medical assistance service provider agrees to;

o Arrange and pay for the return of the Insured Person to his residence or to a Hospital near his residence after initial medical care has been provided, by an appropriate means of transportation, provided the return is medically necessary and permissible based on his medical condition. The medical assistance service provider will arrange for the Insured Person's return using the most appropriate means of transportation: air ambulance, helicopter, commercial airline, train or ambulance.


So for anyone with the same question, if you have group insurance, that's where I'd start.


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 Post subject: Re: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: June 4th, 2022, 4:07 pm 
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Joined: February 24th, 2005, 1:15 pm
Posts: 357
When I did several Yukon River races, a SPOT device with the associated insurance (and a demonstration that you knew how to use it) was madatory equipment. Plus, you had to leave an extra $500 deposit with race officials in case of non-emergency optional pick up if necessary and requested. I know of paddlers who decided to leave the race when at one of the remote manned mid-course mandatory check points and they lost their deposit, but were able to have their boat retrieved.


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 Post subject: Re: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: June 9th, 2022, 8:21 am 
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Joined: May 26th, 2022, 12:18 pm
Posts: 23
Location: Orléans, Ontario
We always bring a SPOT and share the insurance cost between the participants (and the trips we do in a year). It's really cheap for the insurance and peace of mind if anything happens.
The one we have is old but it has 4 types of messages: check-in, special message, "we are in difficulty" and "helivac us"
We also use it to send messages every lunch/night so our significant others can track progress and we have used the "special message" to send anniversary/birthday wishes to them when we are out there. Just for that we think its worth the cost. The newer ones can send more stuff and do live tracking etc. not sure if the cost is more.

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Trip reports from our adventures: https://ssprod.me/trip-reports/list-of-trip-reports/


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 Post subject: Re: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: June 9th, 2022, 2:35 pm 
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Joined: February 24th, 2005, 1:15 pm
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The first generations of SPOT offered an "I am OK" button, that sent out an email of your coordinates to whomever was on your pre-coordinated contact list. It would also do the same thing automatically every 10 minutes (later versions were more time interval selectable). This was the mode requrired for the Yukon Races. Race officials would then plot every boat in the race on a web page map for anyone to see their favorite boat's progress.

I wrote an excel program that my pit crew could insert my coordinates in and, based on estimated planned speed modified by recent previous progress and calculated actual speed, it would provide best estimate time of arrival at any future location on the river, especially the finish. At every internet available location, my pit crew was inundated with other crews asking the same question for their team.

The next non-critical SPOT button essentially said " Need help, we are ok, no emergency" This was to be interpreted by my crew that we are ok but are not going to finish the race, possibly pausing for a time. If you see us continuing to progress down river, meet us at the next possible take-out location on the river.

The last button would advance the signal to SPOT contrated EMS of an SOS emergency, send official large scale help to this location ASAP.


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 Post subject: Re: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: September 2nd, 2022, 7:42 pm 
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Joined: August 16th, 2011, 8:02 pm
Posts: 347
Location: Edmonton area
I just took out SAR insurance, which is linked to my Inreach SE, yesterday. After many questions to various Garmin staff on different Garmin websites (Why, oh why, do they have So many Garmin sites? It is confusing to know which one is for what purpose.)

At any rate, this is the link to the Geos site which provides the insurance; https://my-geos.com/products
You have to set up a free account, and then chose which level of coverage you want. I went with $50k of insurance for SAR/medivac for $29US per year. I actually had a Garmin rep on the phone talking me through the process as I did it.

At one time, SAR insurance was an option when opening up an InReach account, but not now, And both the name of the GPS company, and the SAR insurance company, have changed names/ownership in the not too distant past, which clouds efforts to figure out how to find it online.

As for how slick and pain free it is to put a claim in against the cost of SAR efforts? I hope I never find out.

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 Post subject: Re: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: September 3rd, 2022, 5:01 am 
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Joined: October 25th, 2020, 3:18 pm
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To follow up on my original post, I opted for a one-and-done approach to the SAR question. Got this PLB: https://oceansignal.com/products/plb1/
which seemed to be one of the few that had no subscription or some version of ongoing payments.

Since just about everything I found indicated that it is very rare to be charged for emergency SAR (the one clear exception I could find was SEPAQ parks; just one more annoying thing about our provincial parks here in la belle province) and since my private health plan confirmed that they cover any form of emergency transportation, I decided to forego additional SAR insurance.


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 Post subject: Re: SAR insurance?
PostPosted: September 3rd, 2022, 12:07 pm 
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Joined: February 24th, 2005, 1:15 pm
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What you need to know about insurance from SPOT:

The GEOS Membership is not an insurance policy it is a “pre-paid” service that allows you to draw from the pot, up to $100K for your Search and or Rescue. But there is a catch; GEOS services must dispatch your rescue. This means that if someone else dispatches A.L.E.R.T or any other helicopter extraction or dispatches a local Search and Rescue Team you will not be covered.

The way to insure that your special GEOS membership covers the cost of getting you out of the backcountry you must let them dispatch the services to help you, no exceptions.

https://www.nwmtbch.org/uploads/documen ... t_Spot.pdf


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