Search and Rescue, costs and insurance

[Samma3l]

Hi Everyone,

Long time no post for me (but plenty of lurking around I assure you) but now things are starting to ramp up in terms of a big walk next year: The Bicentennial National Trail.

This being a very long trail, I can forsee that there is an elevated risk of something going wrong. With that in mind, I figured it might be prudent to invest in some Search and Rescue insurance should something catastrophic happen and I need to be airlifted out of trouble (of course this will be triggered by the use of an EPIRB/PLB).

The problem I'm having is finding a place to get this insurance. Is this insurance attainable or is it provided in another package? My first thoughts are, that this may be included with an Ambulance subscription but I'm having trouble finding definitive information. Does anyone here have any pointers?

Thanks

[GPSGuided]

Unless one abuses the rescue service, my understanding is that they are free. But having ambulance subscription or private medical insurance should cover the rest.

[jford]

Ambulance membership will cover you for any ambulance costs either in your home state or elsewhere in Australia: http://www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/Members ... e-for.html And it's cheap.

Travel insurance from somewhere like Flight Centre, STA travel or any other travel agent will cover various things like emergencies, personal liability etc. Look at the Flight Centre website and you can get a basic quote online. You'd need to read the fine print carefully.

Search and Rescue is not charged to the person being rescued, at least not unless the world goes completely mad. There are some great threads on this site about the ethics of all this, including this one where the person concerned was fined for being an idiot (probably termed 'reckless behaviour'): viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11960

If you're not engaging in reckless behaviour then I don't believe you would need insurance to cover S&R. If you are engaging in reckless behaviour, then the insurance company would find a way out of covering you anyway.

J.

[Clusterpod]

What a trek that is. Are there any on the forum that have "done" it?

[Samma3l]

Thanks for the timely replies. It's a relief to know I'll be covered if the worst happens

[Grabeach]

I'd hate to argue in court what is "reckless behaviour". Depending on who you talk to, somewhere between between zero and 100% of off track walks could be described that way.

[vicpres]

My wife's eldest nephew completed approximately 4,000kms of the BNT last year on horseback, on his own. We helped him with advice, food (the home dehydrator was put into service) and some navigational training too. I 'mapped' the trail for him using the BNT guidebooks and Oziexplorer and might be able to provide GPS files.

On the matter of S&R Insurance and costs of rescue, it is the case in Australia that rescue services are not charged for. There have been many high-profile searches over the years, both off-shore and on-shore where the media in particular wants to talk about how much it costs the taxpayer to undertake the search and rescue. Often in discussions around these costs there is some confusion/misunderstanding about rescue costs and ambulance costs. As far as I know, in all states except QLD and TAS, ambulance transport must be paid by the individual, which is why insurance or ambulance membership is important. Where a rescue is necessary i.e. a life threatening situation that requires rescue, the state pays.

In undertaking a trip like this, in this day and age you really must carry at least one form of emergency system. Not doing so could be considered reckless. I would recommend a PLB that can send a GPS encoded signal, which MUST be registered with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA). There are two benefits of a GPS enabled PLB 1) it provides your location to within a minimum of 120m and 2) the signal will be picked much more quickly than a non-gps unit. It can take up to five hours in certain conditions for the signal to be picked up and your location determined with a non-gps unit, but will take only minutes with a GPS unit. A disadvantage of a PLB is that it provides only one way communication i.e. an emergency signal notifying authorities that you are in trouble, so you may also want to consider a satellite phone. The nephew was able get a government subsidy for purchasing his given the sort of trip he was undertaking. Sat phones have come down in price a lot and Thuraya has just recently released a case into which you can clip an iPhone, turning it into a sat phone. Apparently there is an Android model for a Samsung S4 on the way soon. With this you can switch between mobile GSM and satellite connection and of course have access to iPhone functions such as address book and SMS. It also has a programmable SOS button into which you can program your own emergency contact number. If you have a Sat phone and call the Rescue Coordination Centre (it picks up the signal from all Australian issued PLBs, EPIRBs etc) they are able to determine your position to within I think 50m or so. Don't think you can have just a phone without a PLB. A PLB is an emergency device and must meet stringent minimum standards of design and performance (e.g. min of 30 hours battery life) whereas a phone is a communication device. If your phone battery is dead 'cause you have been talking a lot then it is no use in an emergency.

For more info on beacons, check out the AMSA site at http://beacons.amsa.gov.au/index.html

The above information on AMSA and beacons, including the new Thuraya product was passed on by AMSA at the Australian Search & Rescue Forum that I attended last Friday in my role as president of Bushwalking Australia.

[flywire]

I 'mapped' the trail for him using the BNT guidebooks and Oziexplorer and might be able to provide GPS files.

I'd be interested in seeing them. How about loading them somewhere?

[VinceMD]

Hi,

old topic but, was a good question I would like to answer to.
BNT is funded by its members. Not by the government. The BNT organisation holds the intellectual property.
That is the reason why we can't possibly publish the maps, routes on the Internet. Otherwise, many people would be tempted to go without paying the membership fees. And one needs to be a member to get onto private properties. Otherwise it would cause some issues .

More info about the BNT http://www.bicentennialnationaltrail.com.au/

I'm myself attempting the BNT on a bike soon. Starting from Healsville.