Are you a water-lover planning a beach vacation? If you’re the active sort with a love of adventure sports, an afternoon banana boat trip is surely on your list. With great thrills, though, come great risks.

Your average travel insurance is not guaranteed to cover any medical expenses you might incur because of a banana boat ride, and your normal medical insurance may not be valid at your vacation destination. Therefore, to stay totally protected, you need hazardous sports travel insurance. Purchase banana boating travel insurance in order to fully enjoy your banana boat ride experience.

Activity

A banana boat is an inflatable tube, often colored yellow and shaped like a banana. Hence the name. Banana boats are unpowered and meant to be towed by a speed boat.

Also known as a water sled, a banana boat usually seats up to 10 people. However, the maximum occupancy depends on the number of handles the tube has.

Participants wear life jackets and climb onto the tube. Two people from the providers’ side simultaneously pull and push the banana boat into the water until it reaches the speed boat waiting offshore. The guides then tie the banana boat to the speed boat using sturdy, secure rope. The experts pushing and pulling the tube climb onto the front and the rear of the banana boat. The speed boat takes off, then—whoa! You’re racing through the water, riding the waves.

Risks

A banana boat ride can be incredibly thrilling for anyone who loves both the sea and adventure. But there are risks involved, as in any hazardous sport.

At some point during the ride, tube could overturn and dump all the participants into the water. Knowing how to swim and wearing a life jacket still won’t save you from swallowing saltwater. You may even swallow too much because of the suddenness of the fall. The excess salt in seawater is beyond the human body’s ability to process. If you swallow too much of it, you will need to urinate frequently to flush it out of your system, which causes dehydration. Without immediate medical attention, dehydration could very well be fatal. Purchasing an adventure sports travel insurance plan makes perfect sense to avoid financial responsibility for such an incident.

Skin disease and respiratory troubles are also common aftermaths of swallowing seawater. Similarly, rhabdomyolysis—in which muscle fibers are damaged and break down—is a common problem that occurs after a banana boat ride, caused by the need to hold on to the handle for dear life.

Travel Insurance

You want to enjoy the thrill, right? You wouldn’t want nagging worries about possible medical expenses to ruin your banana boat ride experience. Extreme sports travel insurance is your means of ensuring peace of mind. When you have banana boating travel insurance, you know you won’t have to pay for any expenses out of pocket in case you need medical intervention afterward.

Those with a spirit of adventure love participating in extreme sports like banana boating, especially during a vacation. However, it is always prudent to buy travel medical insurance for banana boating and other potentially hazardous sports. To get the best deal, compare different options before you buy your travel insurance for banana boating plan.

DISCLAIMER: The information within this article is intended as a broad summary of benefits and services and is meant for informational purposes only. The information does not describe all scenarios, coverages or exclusions of any insurance plan. The benefits and services of an insurance plan are subject to change. This is not your policy/certificate of insurance. If there is any discrepancy between the information in this article and the language of your policy/certificate wording, the language of the policy/certificate wording will prevail.