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Trekking and Mountaineering Insurance for Australians 2025

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We wrote this article to cover trekking and mountaineering insurance for Australians, as it’s often hard to find. As we often search for our own needs, we decided to share our findings to help others. You can also check out our other articles on Trekking and Mountaineering Insurance and Covid Travel Insurance for Trekking and Mountaineering.

Our focus is on insurance for high altitude and also for the use of mountaineering equipment when needed (helmet, crampons, ice axe, ropes, harness etc).

We’ve reviewed over 45 providers, encompassing insurance companies, rescue specialists, alpine clubs, climbing clubs, recommendations from expedition companies, aggregator & comparison websites, blogposts, as well as talking to other trekkers and mountaineers. We update this post every 6 months.

Disclaimer: This is general information based on our research. As always, you should read the latest policy fine print, online reviews and consider your own personal requirements. While we display Google Ads on this page, we are not using affiliate links in the content of this article and do not earn commission from any insurance companies that we mention.

Download the PDF

In this post

The Australian Travel Insurance Market 2025

Most travel insurers now include some form of Covid cover – mostly for overseas medical expenses if you get Covid while travelling. So we’re no longer including this in our analysis. If it’s important to you then make sure you read the policy fineprint.

  • You can also read our post on Covid insurance and tips for minimising disruption to your expedition.
  • But check the rules as they can be unreasonable e.g. in 2023 we heard of a travel insurer who required a trekker to have a Covid PCR test before helicopter evacuation could be arranged. But of course it’s impossible to get a PCR test when you’re in a remote area!

There are some interesting newer providers with more modern websites and easier-to-understand language e.g.

  • Providers offering instant cash payouts:
    • PassportCard relaunched in Australia in 2023 (previously TravelCard)
    • Flip (via HCF) is for accident injury only. Just launched in 2021 it has a focus on adventure, has no altitude limits and doesn’t exclude mountaineering and rock climbing. It now has 2 options: Flip Active for AU/NZ and Flip Roaming for a very limited number of countries
  • Freely (via Cover-More/Zurich) is a ‘travel insurance and safety app’
  • Battleface is now available in Australia. It’s OK for trekking (and has no altitude limits) but not mountaineering. However special mention is deserved for their innovative Space Travel Insurance! Battleface is underwritten by Pacific International, along with Trippi.

Some policies just don’t make sense eg NIB policies allow up to 6000m but don’t cover activities on snow and ice!!! (except for their skiing package). Not much help for mountaineering.

We’ve now removed AIG, iTrek and Virgin Money from our analysis because they stopped offering travel insurance during the Covid pandemic and haven’t restarted. Note: Virgin Australia links you to Cover-More as their insurance partner.

What to Consider when Searching for Trekking and Mountaineering Insurance

Read the section in our main article on Trekking and Mountaineering Insurance – What to Consider which covers:

  1. Decide what type of cover you need
  2. Create a shortlist of providers based on your minimum requirements
  3. Check other important factors
  4. Weigh up cost vs risk
  5. Read the fine print of the policy before you purchase it.

Trekking and Mountaineering Insurance for Australians

See the image below, or download it as a free pdf (no email required!) for a summary. You may need a combination of providers to get all the cover you need. Links in the image are listed below.

For detailed descriptions of the types of providers, please refer to the section in our main article on Trekking and Mountaineering Insurance that cover:

  1. Check with your expedition company first
  2. Remote Rescue Specialists
  3. Alpine Clubs
  4. Travel Insurers
  5. Reciprocal Health Care Agreements and NZ ACC
  6. Insurance Aggregators/Comparison Websites
  7. Online Reviews
  8. Nepal Helicopter Rescue Scams
Download the PDF

LINKS INCLUDED IN THE ABOVE IMAGE

We’ve excluded those insurers that have put new policy sales on hold due to Covid: AIG, iTrek and Virgin Money (note: Virgin Australia links you to Cover-More as their partner)

Rock climbing: some of the providers we reviewed allow for rock climbing even if they don’t allow for the broader definition of mountaineering (with ropes, crampons, ice axe etc). Some have limits on altitude with rock climbing or certain types of rock climbing. We have not done a complete review of rock climbing as our focus is high altitude trekking and mountaineering.

Remote Rescue Specialists

(see main article for description here)

Alpine Clubs

(see main article for description here)

Travel Insurers – Higher Altitudes

Note: A lot of brands have the same underlying Insurers. However note that each brand is priced differently based on the specific cover they provide – so read the fine print. We’ve also noticed that the process and service levels are not so good for policies sold by resellers or agents (rather than going direct to the main Insurer) – both for arranging evacuation and also when making claims.

  • Insure4Less
  • Flip
  • Pacific International-based policies: Battleface, Trippi
  • Cover-More based policies (underwritten by Zurich) are sold by Cover-More, Medibank, AHM, Webjet, NRMA, Freely. Virgin Australia is slightly different in that they link you to Cover-More as their partner.
  • Allianz-based policies are sold by: Allianz, WorldCare, Boomers
  • World Nomads
  • Lloyds-based policies: FastCover, Zoom
    • Zoom allows outdoor rock climbing
  • Journeyman (via Campbell Irvine)
  • Mitsui Sumitomo-based policies: Insure&Go, Tick
  • PassportCard
  • NIB-based policies (underwritten by XL Insurance Company SE) are sold by: NIB, Qantas, Travel Insurance Saver, Travel Insurance Direct and Cota
    • note that World Nomads is also an NIB-based insurer but we’ve listed this separately because unlike the other NIB-based policies they don’t exclude activities on snow/ice and they DO offer insurance for high altitude trekking (but not mountaineering). They also are the only one we’ve seen so far that specifically call out that you’re covered if the travel advisory changes after you bought the policy and booked arrangements… not to say that others exclude it though.
    • also note that for Cota, while they say they provide insurance for senior Australians, there is no age limit for their Comprehensive or Annual plans
    • if you’re looking at any of the NIB policies (except for World Nomads) and need cover for snow/ice then check with them and get their response in writing. We experienced conflicting views from Travel Insurance Saver: one trekker was told that they would be covered for trekking on snow/ice yet when we submitted a query we were told that trekking on snow/ice would not be covered

Travel Insurers – Lower Altitudes

OTHER IDEAS

Credit Card Travel Insurance

Travel insurance that comes with your credit card can sometimes cover you, at least for your basic travel needs, but they are usually more restrictive than the purchased policies e.g.

  • Excluding travel advisories of ‘reconsider your need to travel’ as well as ‘do not travel’
  • Excluding higher altitudes unless you purchase the adventure add-on
  • The amount of cover you get is often not as much as policies that you buy
  • Check what you need to do to activate the policy eg register the trip to get a policy, spend a certain amount on your trip using the credit card and have the bank statement to prove it
  • Check whether the policy is still valid if your credit card has to be replaced

Check for Discounts

It’s worth checking with your health insurer or any other memberships you have in case they provide discounts on travel insurance.

Annual Policies

If you’re doing a lot of travel then an annual policy is often cheaper than buying multiple policies.

Tips for Making a Travel Insurance Claim

Read the section in our main article for Tips on making a Travel Insurance Claim which covers:

  1. Know and follow the rules of the policy (although some can be unreasonable e.g. requiring a PCR test in a remote area)
  2. Make every effort to reduce extra costs and document how you did this in your claim
  3. Get all the supporting documentation if something goes wrong
  4. Make your claim easy to read and in the correct format

Useful links

Some other good posts on the Australian market for trekking/mountaineering insurance:

General guides on Australian travel insurance:

For travel to NZ:

Covid Travel planning:

Covid and Travel insurance

Helicopter Rescue - Trekking and Mountaineering Insurance for Australians

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