The insurance clause that voids your helicopter evacuation

Everybody trekking in Nepal has travel insurance. A striking number of them are carrying a policy that would not pay for the one thing they bought it for.

Many standard policies exclude trekking above a stated altitude, and that altitude is frequently 4,000 m. Everest Base Camp is at 5,364 m. Kala Patthar is 5,545 m. Thorong La on the Annapurna Circuit is 5,416 m.

In other words, the exclusion begins roughly where the interesting half of the trek does. An insurer applying it will decline the whole claim, not part of it.

A policy that permits high-altitude trekking may still cap helicopter evacuation at $1,000 or $2,000. An evacuation from the Everest region costs between US$3,000 and US$8,000, and more if a longline and a specialist crew are needed.

A cap below the real cost is not cover, it is a contribution. Look for an evacuation limit in the tens of thousands and for the words "helicopter evacuation" written explicitly.

A 2018 government investigation in Nepal found evacuation claims that had been inflated, duplicated or fabricated outright. The industry it exposed has been cleaned up considerably, but the insurers' response was permanent: they now want a medical report, a flight record and evidence that the evacuation was necessary rather than convenient.

Keep every piece of paper you are handed at the hospital and at the operator's desk. A genuine claim with no documentation is a slow claim.

Write down the policy number and the assistance company's phone number on paper, and keep them somewhere that does not need a signal or a charged phone.

The flight does not wait for any of this — an operator lifts on the medical need and settles the paperwork afterwards — but a policy you can quote at 04:00 is one fewer thing between a casualty and a hospital.