When I resided in the UK, I used to buy Piste Closure Insurance (PCI) in conjunction with booking my ski holiday, a reader writes. He did this in case his booked resort received insufficient snow, leading to some of the lifts and pistes being closed when he got there. He could then claim under the PCI policy. “As a result, most of the money paid in booking the ski holiday could be recovered from the PCI,” he says.
Last year, he looked into buying PCI online, but UK insurers required you to be UK resident. Such PCI policies were not available to people resident in the HKSAR. He then checked with HSBC Insurance in Hong Kong - the provider of HSBC Multitrip Travelsurance. HSBC Insurance told him they did not provide PCI. He then asked HSBC Insurance (HK) to check with its UK counterpart, whether the latter could provide PCI to someone resident in Hong Kong. A day later, he received a telephone call from HSBC Insurance confirming in the negative.
He then checked with an experienced Hong Kong-based insurance broker (for a variety of insurance policies). The considered answer was that PCI was not available in Hong Kong, from any insurance companies, for HK residents.
This lack of piste cover, our reader says, is driving ski-ers who book their holidays in advance, further up the ski slopes in search of guaranteed snow. “Personally, I nowadays make bookings only for resorts with pistes above the 10,000 feet mark,” he says. “But that means ruling out, realistically, all resorts in Japan and the Republic of Korea, some in Australia & New Zealand, plus many in Europe and North America. In sum, the non-availability of PCI seriously limits peoples’ holiday choices.”
No No-Claim Protection
So if the piste is bare, what about the rest of the insurance market? I remember it being nearly impossible to get insurance cover to work as a counsellor here some years back, something which cost just HK$2,400 per year in the UK. I was told there was no demand for it. We’re always hearing that cliché about Hong Kong being the “level playing field” for legal and financial services - not so with insurance.