Ski travel insurance Ireland: compare winter-sports cover and real prices from €30.25 a week
- Mountain rescue
- On-piste accidents
- Equipment covered
A. FruchardCo-Founder & Travel Insurance ExpertLast updated: 29 August 2026Do Irish skiers really need ski travel insurance?
Ski travel insurance covers emergency medical care, mountain search and rescue and repatriation on a winter-sports trip, from €30.25 a week for an Irish skier. Your European Health Insurance Card pays for none of the rescue, and the rescue is the part of a ski accident that gets expensive.
Twelve years of reading policy wordings and the pattern in the resort never changes: the fall itself is cheap, getting off the mountain is not. Ireland has no ski area of its own, so every Irish ski holiday is a foreign trip and every ski accident is a foreign bill. Our Irish comparison prices six travel plans for a week in the Alps, from €18.15 to €71.50, and only two of them will accept the winter-sports option.
The figure that decides a ski policy is not the headline price, it is the mountain search and rescue limit. Across the two plans an Irish resident can actually buy with winter sports on, it runs from €5,000 on WorldSecure Platinum to €25,000 per incident on Go Protect once its high-risk sports extension is taken. Ticking that option costs €1.37 for the week on WorldSecure Platinum and €20.68 on Go Protect.
Ski cover is one part of a full travel insurance policy, sitting next to medical expenses, repatriation and cancellation. Read the whole contract before you buy a bolt-on that duplicates protection you already hold.
Every year, our experts audit each plan against its binding policy wording: coverage, limits and exclusions, cross-checked with real customer feedback and live market prices. The analysis is fully independent, with zero paid placements and no insurer able to pay to influence a rating. HelloSafe is an ORIAS-registered insurance broker (n° 21008038), supervised by the ACPR. We compare travel insurance across every country and currency, using the plans, prices and cover actually offered in your country, not a single guide translated.
Learn moreWhich ski travel insurance is best for Irish skiers?
The best ski travel insurance for most Irish skiers is Go Protect at €49.50 for a week in the Alps, because its winter-sports extension lifts mountain search and rescue to €25,000 per incident, five times the limit on the cheaper plan, and it charges a couple the same price as one skier.
We ranked the plans an Irish resident can buy for that trip on cover against real price, with the winter-sports option requested. WorldSecure Platinum is the value pick for a solo skier at €30.25: the same €300,000 of emergency medical cover, the same €4,500,000 of personal liability, a higher baggage limit of €2,000, and trip cancellation included up to the trip price with a ceiling of €9,000. Its weakness is the rescue line, capped at €5,000, and an upper age limit that ends the quote at 65.
Go Protect answers both of those. It still quotes €49.50 at 65, at 70 and at 75, it pays €2,300 as a cash advance against €700, and it adds €2,500 of stay interruption that WorldSecure Platinum does not carry at all. The trade is a smaller baggage limit, €1,500, and a wording that will not cover skis as sports equipment.
Antoine's take
If you ski, the guarantee you are really buying is the one that gets you off the mountain and into a hospital without you handing over a card. Go Protect does that best for an Irish skier: its high-risk sports extension raises search and rescue in the mountains to €25,000 per incident, it names off-piste skiing and snowboarding in the list of activities it covers, it pays €300,000 of emergency medical care and repatriates you at actual cost. At €49.50 for a week in the Alps it costs less than two days of lift pass, and because it prices a couple at the same €49.50, two of you travelling together pay half each. If you ski alone and stay on the marked runs, WorldSecure Platinum at €30.25 does the job for less and adds cancellation cover, as long as you are under 65 and accept a €5,000 rescue limit. Two honest caveats: neither plan refunds a lift pass, ski hire or lessons if the resort shuts, and the winter-sports option has to be on the policy before you travel, because it cannot be added after a fall. Antoine Fruchard, Co-Founder & Travel Insurance Expert at HelloSafe.
Personalized quote · no commitment
Personalized quote · no commitment
Real quotes for a ski trip: 1 traveller aged 28, 7 days in France (16 to 23 January 2027), departing from Ireland, winter-sports option requested. HelloSafe data, August 2026. Only these two plans accept the winter-sports option for an Irish resident. Go Protect prices a couple at the same rate as a solo skier, so from two people up it becomes the cheaper of the two. Your price depends on your age, trip length and destination.
HelloSafe is available as an app inside ChatGPT. Install it from ChatGPT’s Apps tab, then type @HelloSafe followed by your destination and dates to compare travel insurance.
How much does ski travel insurance cost from Ireland?
Ski travel insurance costs from €30.25 for a week in the French Alps with the winter-sports option on, about €4.32 a day. The same plan without winter sports is €28.88, so the ski cover itself is worth €1.37 on that quote, and a bare standard policy for the week starts at €18.15.
Your price is driven by your age, how long you ski and how many of you travel, far more than by the resort: France, Austria, Italy and Andorra all return the same €30.25 and €49.50 for that week. Skiing outside Europe is the real jump, with Canada and the United States quoting €51.24 and €67.10 for the same seven days. All prices on this page were captured from our comparison engine in August 2026.
Profile | Budget | Average | Premium | Key point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Solo skier Aged 28, 7 days | €30.25 (WorldSecure Platinum) | €39.88 | €49.50 (Go Protect) | Rescue limit €5,000 on the budget plan against €25,000 |
Ski couple Aged 32 and 30, 7 days | €49.50 (Go Protect) | €55.00 | €49.50 (Go Protect) | Go Protect prices two adults as one policy, so it is both the cheapest and the best covered |
Ski family 2 adults, 2 children, 7 days | €60.39 (Go Protect) | €90.70 | €60.39 (Go Protect) | WorldSecure Platinum charges €121.00 for the same four people, priced individually |
Two-week ski trip Aged 28, 14 days | €45.39 (WorldSecure Platinum) | €49.32 | €53.24 (Go Protect) | The gap between the two plans almost closes over a fortnight |
Skier aged 65 7 days | €49.50 (Go Protect) | €49.50 | €49.50 (Go Protect) | WorldSecure Platinum stops quoting at 65, so one plan is left |
Real quotes, residence Ireland, 7 days in France (16 to 23 January 2027) unless stated, winter-sports option requested, EUR. HelloSafe data, captured August 2026.
If you ski more than once a season the arithmetic still favours single-trip cover, because no multi-trip plan in our Irish comparison accepts the winter-sports option. An annual travel insurance policy will cover your city breaks and your summer holidays, but it will not follow you off the marked piste.
Set those premiums against the bill they replace. Rescue inside a French ski area is charged to the skier: the resort of Tignes states plainly that in France you have to pay for ski rescue services and warns that the cost escalates quickly once a helicopter is involved. Skiinfo puts the tariffs at roughly €150 to €200 for a rescue in the near-piste zone, about €340 in the distant zone, €630 to €700 off piste, and about €30 for every minute a privately chartered helicopter is in the air. A hospital stay and a medical flight home sit on top of that.
What does ski travel insurance cover on and off piste?
Ski travel insurance is a travel policy whose winter-sports cover pays for a skiing or snowboarding accident: emergency treatment abroad, mountain search and rescue, repatriation home and personal liability if you injure another skier. On the Irish plans we read, skiing on a marked, open piste sits inside the standard cover, and leaving the marked runs is the part you have to buy.
That single line is the most misread clause in the market, so here it is from the binding wordings. WorldSecure Platinum excludes, unless the risk-sports option is selected at the time of subscription, "bobsleigh, skeleton, mountaineering, competitive luge, aerial sports with the exception of parasailing, sea scooters, combat sports, off-piste sliding sports, scuba diving with tanks". Its definition of mountaineering explicitly does not catch "alpine skiing, cross country skiing and ski touring" or snowboarding. Go Protect works the other way round and names what it adds: its high-risk sports extension covers a listed set of activities that includes "off-piste skiing/snowboarding".
Cover | WorldSecure Platinum | Go Protect |
|---|---|---|
Emergency medical care abroad Hospital, surgery, X-rays | Up to €300,000 | Up to €300,000 |
Repatriation Medical flight or transfer home | Actual cost | Actual cost |
Mountain search and rescue Getting you off the slope | Up to €5,000 | Up to €25,000 with the option* |
Personal liability Colliding with another skier | Up to €4,500,000 | Up to €4,500,000 |
Off-piste skiing Outside the marked runs | Option required* | Option required* |
Trip cancellation Before you leave Ireland | Trip price, ceiling €9,000 | Paid add-on, ceiling €12,000 |
Baggage | Up to €2,000 | Up to €1,500 |
Skis and snowboard in the hold | Option required* | Winter-sports gear excluded |
Lift pass, ski hire and lessons Refund if the pistes close | Not covered | Not covered |
Two gaps deserve to be named plainly, because the Irish specialists do sell them. Neither wording carries a ski-pack or piste-closure benefit: if the resort shuts or you break a leg on day one, the lift pass, the hire and the lessons are your loss. And skis travel as sports equipment rather than ordinary luggage, so WorldSecure Platinum excludes them from baggage cover unless the option is on, while the Go Protect wording defines sports equipment as gear for the sport practised on the holiday, "excluding skiing or other winter sports". If you take good skis, insure them at home or hire in resort.
Who pays for mountain rescue if ski travel insurance does not?
You do. Without ski travel insurance the cost of finding you, moving you off the mountain and flying you home falls on you personally, because your European Health Insurance Card covers none of it and the HSE does not reimburse it afterwards.
The European Commission is unambiguous about the card most Irish travellers rely on: your EHIC "will not help you with rescue and repatriation", and "search and rescue costs are not covered by the European Health Insurance Card". It gives you state healthcare in the country you are visiting on the same terms as a local, which is genuinely useful for the hospital part and worthless for the mountain part. Irish residents can read the card's scope on Citizens Information and the state's wider travel guidance from the Department of Foreign Affairs. Carry the card and a policy, not one instead of the other.
That rescue bill is exactly what the search and rescue guarantee exists for. WorldSecure Platinum pays "the cost of searching at sea or in the mountains following an event that puts your life at risk", up to €5,000, and only where the bill comes from a duly authorised rescue company, so keep whatever paperwork the piste service hands you. Go Protect covers €10,000 per incident as standard and states that "search and rescue costs in the mountains and at sea are increased to €25,000 per incident if the high-risk sports extension is taken out". Our comparison sheet still records the €10,000 base figure for that plan, so read the €25,000 as the number that applies once the option you need for skiing is on.
- Ring the assistance line from the slope, before you agree to any transport. The number is on your certificate and the line runs 24 hours a day.
- Get written proof of the rescue from the piste service, showing what was done and by whom.
- Keep every invoice: sledge, helicopter, ambulance, hospital, scans and any medicine you pay for yourself.
- Ask the assistance doctors to authorise the hospital costs. The Go Protect wording makes an advance on hospitalisation abroad conditional on their agreement, so the call is what stops you paying up front.
- Declare the claim within five days. Both wordings set that deadline and warn that missing it can cost you the payout.
For a serious injury the flight home is the largest single item, and both plans cover repatriation at actual cost rather than a fixed sum, which matters when the aircraft has to carry a medical escort. Skiing outside Europe changes the medical arithmetic rather than the rescue one: the same week in Canada or the United States prices at €51.24 and €67.10 because the hospital risk, not the mountain, is what moves.
What conditions and exclusions does ski travel insurance have?
Four clauses decide whether a ski travel insurance claim pays: the off-piste rule, the sports-equipment rule, the upper age limit and the five-day claim deadline. All four sit in the policy wording rather than on the sales page, and all four have caught real skiers out.
Read on the contracts rather than the summary sheets, two more conditions matter. WorldSecure Platinum applies a deductible of €100 per case and per claim on the personal liability cover, which is the guarantee you call on when you take another skier down. And Go Protect excludes anything done "as a licence holder of a sports federation", along with organised competitions and any sport practised professionally, so a club race weekend is outside the cover even with the extension bought.
Ski travel insurance over 65 in Ireland
Age is where the Irish market thins out fast. WorldSecure Platinum quotes a skier of 64 at €30.25 and returns nothing at all at 65. Go Protect keeps quoting the same €49.50 at 65, at 70 and at 75 with the winter-sports option on, which makes it the only winter-sports answer we found for an Irish skier past their mid-sixties. The cheapest standard plan, WorldSecure Basic at €18.15, is capped much earlier and never accepts the option at any age.
- Mountain search and rescue limit : treat €5,000 as the floor for an Alpine week and €25,000 as what the Go Protect extension pays per incident.
- The off-piste line in the wording : if you plan to leave the marked runs, only the winter-sports option follows you there, and it must be ticked before you travel.
- Your age on the policy : WorldSecure Platinum stops quoting at 65, Go Protect still prices a skier of 75.
- How the plan prices your group : Go Protect charges a couple the same €49.50 as one skier, WorldSecure Platinum charges €60.50.
- The claim deadline : five days to declare, counted from the accident, on both wordings.
- Piste closure and the ski pack : neither wording refunds the lift pass, ski hire or lessons if the resort shuts.
- Skis in the hold on Go Protect : its sports-equipment cover is written for the sport practised on the holiday, excluding skiing and other winter sports.
- Racing and club competition : skiing as a licence holder of a sports federation, or in an organised competition, is excluded and no option buys it back.
- Bobsleigh, skeleton and competitive luge : named as excluded on WorldSecure Platinum unless the risk-sports option is taken at subscription.
- The liability excess : WorldSecure Platinum keeps €100 per claim on damage you cause to someone else.
One practical consequence: buy the cover when you book the holiday, not the night before the flight. Cancellation only works while the policy is already in force when the reason to cancel appears, and the winter-sports option cannot be bought retrospectively. If you want the wider picture across every plan sold in Ireland rather than the ski angle alone, compare travel insurance or read our best travel insurance in Ireland ranking.
What do Irish skiers ask about ski travel insurance?
No, ski travel insurance is not compulsory in the Alps, but rescue and hospital costs are billed to you and your European Health Insurance Card does not cover them. Resorts sell a daily rescue card at the lift office, which pays for the evacuation only, not for hospital care or the flight home.
Skiing on a marked, open piste is not listed as an exclusion on the Irish plans we read, so a standard policy covers an on-piste accident. Off-piste sliding sports, bobsleigh, skeleton and competitive luge are excluded unless you take the winter-sports option when you subscribe.
Ski travel insurance costs €30.25 for a week in the French Alps on WorldSecure Platinum and €49.50 on Go Protect, for a traveller aged 28 leaving from Ireland with the winter-sports option on. A couple pays €60.50 or €49.50, and a family of four €121.00 or €60.39.
No. The European Commission states that your EHIC will not help you with rescue and repatriation, and that search and rescue costs are not covered by the card. It gives you state healthcare abroad at local cost and nothing beyond that.
Off-piste is excluded on a standard policy. Both Irish winter-sports plans buy it back through an option taken at subscription: the Go Protect extension names off-piste skiing and snowboarding, and the WorldSecure Platinum wording excludes off-piste sliding sports unless the risk-sports option is selected.
It depends on the plan. WorldSecure Platinum excludes sports equipment from baggage cover unless the option is selected when you subscribe. Go Protect goes further: its sports-equipment cover is defined as gear for the sport practised on the holiday, excluding skiing and other winter sports.
No. Neither plan available to Irish residents in our comparison refunds a lift pass, ski hire or lessons, and neither wording carries a piste-closure or avalanche benefit. Irish winter-sports specialists sell that ski-pack cover separately.
Yes, but from one plan only. WorldSecure Platinum stops quoting at 65, while Go Protect still returns €49.50 for a week in the Alps at 65, at 70 and at 75 with the winter-sports option on.
Not for the skiing itself. No multi-trip plan in our Irish comparison accepts the winter-sports option, so an annual policy covers your other trips but will not follow you off the marked piste. Buy the ski week separately.
Ring the 24-hour assistance line before you agree to any transport, get written proof of the rescue from the piste service, and keep every invoice. Both wordings set a five-day deadline to declare the claim, and missing it can cost you the payout.
On the same topic
Worldwide travel insurance for Irish travellers: compare cover with or without the USA from €2.32 a day
30 Aug 2026
What does travel insurance cover? Every guarantee explained for Irish travellers
28 Aug 2026
Compare travel insurance Ireland: best cover and cheapest price from €18.15 a week
25 Aug 2026
