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20. 10. 09. - 15:00

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20. 10. 09. - 15:00

Lift money should pay for rescues, say insurers

By David Rogers

Insurance bosses have said money from mountain lift tickets should be used to cover rescues.

Michael Sturmlechner from Austrian insurance company Allianz said today (Tues) that one Euro of the cost of each lift ticket be used to pay for mountain rescues by helicopter.

The firm claimed the money collected would bridge the gap between the maximum of 890 Euros that social-insurance funds paid per rescue in only 18 per cent of the 6,000 annual cases in Austria and the thousands of Euros that each rescue actually costs.

Sturmlechner said its proposed SAFE-R (safety area for extensive rescue) programme would automatically deduct one Euro from the price of each lift ticket sold. It added service provider Alpgarant would oversee programme processing.

Alpgarant chief Alexander Bauer said he had approached lift operators about the idea last April and had not come across any significant opposition.

Given the ski areas’ need for long-term planning, he added, only a few operators had so far backed the scheme, but more would be before the 2010/2011 ski season.

Sturmlechner said Allianz expected lift operators to cooperate since other solutions faced great obstacles. Coverage of the 73 per cent of winter-sports guests who came from abroad was an aspect of the programme that could be used to help market it, he added.

Most of them had no idea that they could be asked to pay the cost of a mountain rescue or medical emergency, he said.

Under 40 per cent of Austrians who engaged in winter sports had private accident insurance or a letter of protection from car club ÖAMTC, Sturmlechner said, adding polls showed 90 per cent of Austrians were prepared to pay one Euro more for a lift ticket.

Austrian Times

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