Skiing Injury Insurance Payouts

#Verbier

The Swiss National Accident Insurance Fund (Suva) has recently provided an analysis of the extent and costs of winter sports accidents from an insurers perspective.

Typically around 90,000 winter sports accidents are reported every year in Switzerland. For the last full year for which there is data, unsurprisingly downhill skiing comes top of the list of incidents with a total of 52,320. For other winter sports the figures are: snowboarding: 11,060, tobogganing: 6460, cross-country skiing : 5440, ice hockey: 5010, skating and figure skating: 3780, and ski touring: 970.

The cost of these accidents in terms of insurance payments for skiing alone comes out at 610 million Swiss francs (snowboarding: SFr 74 million). The breakdown for skiers by seriousness of injury is: light injuries: SFr 100 million, moderately serious injuries: SFr 182 million, serious injuries: SFr 235 million, disability: SFr 49 million and death: SFr 44 million.

The sums are some 70% higher than they were fifteen years. The increase is reckoned by Suva to be caused by higher performance equipment, the advent of ski carving, the preparation of slopes, artificial snow, and the increasing average age of skiers – with the most affected category being that of 40-59 years old.

For alpine skiing, the most commonly affected body parts are the knee: 30.9% (snowboarding: 15.2%), shoulder and upper arm: 24.1% (snowboarding: 23.4%), lower legs and ankles: 13.8% (snowboarding: 13.1%), trunk: 13.7% (snowboarding: 19%), wrist, hand, fingers: 11.8 % (snowboarding: 13, 1%).
Suva estimates the average cost of a broken leg at SFr 22,500 in total.

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