Indian cricket team skywalks in Australia.

If you are wondering what these headlines are doing in a personal finance blog let me explain.

Millions of dollars are riding on these celebreties. In fact for the cricket team it is probably in billions rather than millions. I am sure they are insured to the gills against accidents. Given the amounts involved  i am sure the packages are specially designed for them. Am very curios to find out if their policies cover accidents that may be caused while engaged in such adventure sports . Did the thought of insurance coverage cross their minds at all while they were engaging in these high risk sports ?

Any information is most welcome ……

In any case even if the celeberities are covered because they have access to high quality insurance brokers what about the common folks. A close friend of mine was recently describing his bungee jump in South Africa.  He had no problems but he clearly was not aware that he had no insurance coverage if he had suffered from any injuries. I have myself done para sailing on a trip overseas (even after going through the policy wordings i am not sure i would have been covered in the event of an accident) . We have already read reports of the unfortunate death in Bangalore from a bungee jumping accident. Off Course Life insurance cover is available for death from this accident but the medical expenses would not have been covered if he had survived.

Shouldn’t these facts be known more widely and shouldn’t the people running these sports be required to provide warnings to their clients apart from the release forms that they normally get signed.

Views welcome………

P.S. Preity - if you ever read this - my daughter is a big fan of yours

Watching cricket has professional spin offs as well. Just saw an advertisement from the Bajaj Allianz Insurance group (it has both life as well as non life insurance products). The advertisement feature a youngish couple engaging in white water kayaking as well as other sports which, in my dictionary, can only be classified as adventure sports. The advertisement story line is that the couple is so relaxed because they have chosen to protect themselves through the various policies of the group that they can afford to engage in these pursuits. So what is so exceptional about this advertisement that i am writing this blog entry?

The point is that most health and accident policies exclude claims arising from injuries/accidents caused while engaging in adventure sports. Most consumers are not even aware of such exclusions. now if somebody watched this advertisement and bought a policy from them and a claim arose because he followed the lifestyle that the advertisement featured  would the Insurance company be justified in rejecting that claim ?

I invite your views on this. For the Apnateam members - could somebody please do the research on their policies to see if white water kayaking is covered in their accident and health insurance policies ?

A close friend of mine, Mr. Ramzan R. Motani has expired in the recent bomb blasts in July 2006. He had credit cards from HDFC/HSBC with an approximate due of Rs.22, 000. Reliable sources have informed us that is an insurance of Rs.2 lakh for personal accident. The bank hid this and did not issue a claim form. They said that the above mentioned case is not an accident case and are not issuing a claim form.