Should SAR charge for ALL rescues?
I feel like having a free SAR service that a select few take advantage of this and assume they dont need to take as much responsibility for them selves in the backcountry. Every now and then there are stories about trampers activating their PLB because of blisters or tourists needing rescue because they go out with completely inadequate gear such as jeans and sports shoes.
Like Saint John ambulance, if SAR were to charge a service fee for EVERY rescue operation could this potentionally make people more responsible in the back country?
31 comments
>Insurance cos offering travel insurance know about the free service and set premiums that wouldnt cover the costs if it was removed
I disagree with charging for SAR for the usually-stated reasons, but I'm not convinced this one's true.
Sure insurance companies set premiums according to the risk factors for countries, but NZ typically gets bundled into a big group of countries. Some of these countries *do* charge, and the policy typically says that if there's an official fee for all of those places, insurance will cover it, but if there isn't (as in NZ) then it won't.
Will insurance companies remove NZ from that bundle just because it starts charging for SAR and so the financial "risk" increases slightly? I doubt it. The comparative SAR cost in NZ for insurance companies is probably negligible because very very few of their insured customers in NZ are ever likely to require SAR anyway. Those who do would most likely only amount to a few thousand dollars. It'd not be worth the overheads to categorise NZ differently for such an almost insignificantly slight risk increase compared with what it was.
A parallel consideration to this is that if NZ *did* charge for SAR, and if so many tourists have travel insurance which would effectively cover them, would the possibility of being charged even have an effect on most of those people's behaviour?
My own guess is that most people never expect to require SAR, and so probably don't consider the potential financial risk until after it's too late for them anyway... which means those who can afford it or have insurance are fine, whereas those who can't are simply screwed and perhaps financially crippled for life, depending on the charging system. All the time very little or no behaviour has actually changed.
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Forum | The campfire |
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Started by | fdi4r978fg |
On | 26 May 2018 |
Replies | 30 |
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