When Disaster Strikes: Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance

When a carefully planned trip starts tumbling out of control, your best bet is to pull the Ripcord. Available now, Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance covers everything from lost passports to life-threatening emergencies.

Last winter during a motorcycle tour of southern Patagonia, one of my travel companions suffered a serious crash. After tending to his broken bones and deploying the SOS signal on our Garmin inReach, a rescue helicopter arrived on the scene. Only hours after impact, he was in a hospital bed and on the road to recovery. He was lucky.

As our adventures get more ambitious, it’s not enough to rely on good luck to save the day. Although there are plenty of insurance providers aimed at outdoor travelers, most plans have significant limitations. There is one exception –– Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance.

Ripcord is the most comprehensive service of its kind. Backed by Redpoint Resolutions, a titan of the insurance industry with more than 10 million clients, its policies cover everything from lost luggage to emergency extractions in far-flung corners of the globe.

Whether you’re pinned down by a winter storm or rebel gunfire, Ripcord will get you home in one piece. And that’s not hyperbole: It really did save a client from a rebel shootout in the Central African Republic.

Ripcord Rescue: Help Where None Is Available

Unlike other services, Ripcord is not a dispatch center. Although they rely on an extensive database of first responders all over the globe, the Ripcord team conducts their own field operations.

According to Redpoint Resolution VP and former Army Ranger, Tom Bochnowski, “Our trained personnel have responded to emergencies on seven continents. If we need to get you ourselves, we will. And we’ll get there quickly.”

It’s a claim made with earned confidence. The Ripcord team includes former Navy SEALs, special operations veterans, paramedics, intelligence experts, and seasoned medical advisors. Their best practices stem from many years wiggling out of sticky situations.

To ensure rapid and effective responses, their logistics experts continually review emergency assets in popular adventure locations. A common resource for climbers, Ripcord successfully executes as many as 20 Himalayan rescues every season. But you don’t have to risk death on Mt. Everest to benefit from their coverage.

Overseeing Links in the Rescue Chain

In places like Yosemite, Moab, and the Grand Canyon, search and rescue teams are always on standby. And they’re good at what they do.

Even when not required on the scene, Ripcord’s staff provides valuable assistance. There are a lot of moving parts in a crisis situation. Ripcord oversees the event from initial distress signal through to final resolution.

During our incident in Chile, my friend shuttled between ambulances, clinics, and helicopters multiple times before admittance to a major hospital. Keeping tabs on him and arranging for his safe transfer home was not easy.

We didn’t have Ripcord coverage. If we had, they would have been available for medical advice, travel assistance, and facilitated the safe delivery of our buddy from point of injury to the hospital of his choice at home.

Ripcord Insurance Review: Coverage for Real Adventures

Unless you like to read the fine print, you may not notice the limitations imposed by other insurance providers. Even the big players with strong reputations have restrictions on altitude, diving depth, or exclusions for things like hunting or backcountry skiing.

Pre-existing medical conditions frequently restrict coverage. By contrast, the Ripcord limitations are minimal. They understand their customer base and strive to offer protection for authentic adventures.

Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance: One Plan to Manage

For many years, people had to buy one policy to cover their basic travel needs and another for medical evacuation or rescue services. Aside from the added expense, it invites potential headaches in the event of a filed claim.

Overlapping policies are a hot-potato adjuster’s excuse to deny payment. With Ripcord, one plan covers everything from a lost passport to a five-alarm emergency.

Who Really Needs Ripcord?

When I bought my Garmin inReach, the SOS button seemed like a novelty. It was nice to have but I never thought I’d need to push it. When that day came, I realized how quickly a fun-filled dream vacation turns into a nightmare.

Even if the only disaster to occur is a delayed plane or missing bag, travel insurance is nice to have. The next time I crawl into a ditch and notice my friend has two more elbows than he should, I’ll know to pull the Ripcord.

Christophe Noel is a freelance journalist, photographer, and general vagabond. A seeker of stories untold, he can often be found with a map in hand, lost, in the most remote corners of the globe. The founder of Clean Drink Adventures, he believes in the power of the traveler and doing good as you go.