Random topic here but climbing related and might catch some interest among the regulars. I recently applied for life insurance and was shocked at the detailed questions regarding so called risky activities. One of the questions was "Do you participate in rock climbing/ice climbing/mountaineering?" If you answer yes, and I did, you then are required to fill out an additional addendum to the application which asked surprisingly detailed questions. It asked the different types of climbing.. traditional, sport, ice, FREE SOLOING(HA! Alex Honnold wouldn't qualify) that I participated in. Then it asked what grade I climbed in those sub types. Just when I thought I was done, no! More questions! It then asked what areas I climbed and frequency in the last 12 months, the length of time required to climb them, and location(I knew I was toast when I put Alaska)? Wow!

Ok, so why do I bring this up? Well, the detailed set of metrics they are using to evaluate risk is data that must have only become available in the past 5 years maybe. Then I speculated some more. A ha! the only publication with this kind of detail would be "Accidents in North American Mountaineering." Could it be that this data is being sold to insurance companies? or is it being used free? I don't have these answers but I knew that the wealth of knowledge among summitpost fanatics would have the answers. Don't let me down! and please don't tell me the American Alpine Club Is whoring out our precious climbing data for $$$$ reasons instead of its original purpose of helping us stay safer and learning from the mistakes of other climbers? Ok, I'm done now! and hopefully they don't deny my life insurance.

jesu, joy of man's desiring wrote:Why were you shocked at the risky activity questions? If you owned a life insurance company would you encourage motorcycle racers, base jumpers, extreme free soloists, and high-altitude alpine wall climbers to all purchase your life insurance?

That's like selling life insurance only to guys who are terminally despondent, unhappily divorced, 100 pounds overweight, and who have a regular habit of drinking heavily while they examine their collection of loaded handguns five nights a week

I wasn't shocked at them asking about climbing as a risky activity but was shocked at how much detail they asked. I am curious where they get the data metrics to compare ice climbing for example at WI4 compared to WI3. I'm more curious where they get detailed analysis of fatalities that would include such things like grade, location, ect..

It strikes me that the AAC's Accidents in North American Mountaineering are mainly narrative, and often very truncated, reports although they do have tables in the back breaking down some of the data. I'm not an actuary but I would speculate an insurance company's actuaries rely on more statistical types of data to formulate risk factors in the underwriting process. You may not even have to be an AAC member to simply purchase those reports directly and so no need for the insurance company to purchase private data from the AAC. But maybe I'm wrong. As far as the detailed questions, the insurer can easily hire a consultant with experience in the activity involved who could supply the questions that should be asked to assess a candidate's insurability. Hope you get your coverage!

Another forum earlier this year on this topic. Very helpful! Here is the link,

life-insurance-policies-and-climbing-t67019.html