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Given the amount of injuries related to mountain biking, is there some specific insurance needed for it? It seems one of those "net-negative for the society act

Given the amount of injuries related to mountain biking, is there some specific insurance needed for it? It seems one of those "net-negative for the society activities", like trampolines.

erikerikson 2y ago
Kids have so much joy on trampolines! I know they have dangers but net negative? Do you have data or anything?
ghaff 2y ago
In general, "society" deciding what activities are too dangerous to routinely allow is a really nasty slope. Yes, there's some special insurance offered through private organizations for things like higher altitude mountaineering. But it's not that big a step to rule that any contact sport, for example, should require special insurance. I'm sure the insurance companies wouldn't mind.
- 4ggr0 2y ago
  One thing which comes to mind is - why should we stop at sports, then? we'll immediately be at the point where smokers, alcoholics, obese people etc. should pay more, after all, their way of life statistically causes higher costs. (i don't think either of those things should result in higher insurance prices, just continuing the thought.)
  - doix 2y ago
    > we'll immediately be at the point where smokers, alcoholics, obese people etc. should pay more, after all, their way of life statistically causes higher costs. Wait, do they not? I genuinely assumed they did. I remember when I got private insurance through my work I had to fill in some questionnaire. It was "free", but it was a taxable benefit so you knew how much you were costing the company and me and my friends had different rates. I wonder what the actual statistics are when it comes to costs with active people that are more likely to be injured vs obese people that are less likely to be injured but more likely to suffer obesity related illnesses.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Private life insurance may. I don't think health insurance generally does. Certainly Medicare doesn't ask about any of those things.
      - SoftTalker 2y ago
        Health insurance can't ask about this since ACA (I think). Life insurance can and often requires an actual physical exam. And can exclude specific activities such as flying on small private aircraft from coverage.
    - philwelch 2y ago
      Health insurance premiums used to be different based on whether or not you smoked; maybe they still are. It would still be nice if you could lower your health insurance premiums by losing weight or buying a policy that didn’t cover mountain bike injuries or whatnot.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        At a former company, there was some trivial discount for an annual health care screening which I stopped doing because it was trivial and something that wasn't between me and my doctor. I would absolutely not sign onto a screening that invasively wanted to know about specific athletic or other activities of that sort. (Which would probably also give the insurance company untold levers to deny your claim.) "Oh, you said you don't rock climb, well that 'hike' looks like a rock climb to us."
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      >> we'll immediately be at the point where smokers [...] should pay more, after all, their way of life statistically causes higher costs. > Wait, do they not? Why should they? It's not obvious at all that smoking causes higher costs; a smoker who gets lung cancer is a smoker who never needs the medical care we give to the elderly.
      - webmaven 2y ago
  - corobo 2y ago
    You mean like an additional tax on tobacco, alcohol, and sugar? You're behind the times lol -- UK
  - Zanfa 2y ago
    Some countries tax tobacco, alcohol and sugar at higher rates to offset the costs incurred to society?
  - AngryData 2y ago
    I don't know about alcoholics, but smokers and obese people actually cost less in medical care because they usually die before age-related diseases takes hold which are the most expensive, they most often die of heart attack and stroke which are the cheapest deaths, and being fat or a smoker disqualifies you from many procedures and operations that they otherwise would do without hesitation. On top of that for smokers, the amount of sin taxes they pay on cigarettes over their lifetime almost always exceeds their entire life-time medical costs.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    insurance companies already buy up information from data brokers and use that to jack up people's rates according to whatever they happen to find to justify it. They won't tell you when they do it, you'll just be offered a very different price than you would have been given if you didn't buy as much alcohol, spent more time at the gym, only drove your car in the daytime, or lived in a different zip code.
  - cma 2y ago
    Aren't there already insurance rebates in the US or something for tobacco-free attestation?
- parineum 2y ago
  I play recreational hockey. All of the rinks around here (and most of the US) require membership to USA Hockey which, among other things, provides some kind of insurance to both the rinks and the players. https://www.usahockey.com/insurancemanagement https://www.usahockey.com/insurancemanagement
  - ghaff 2y ago
    That must be relatively new. Never heard of such a thing. Wonder if it's a reason my undergrad really cut back on intramural hockey.
  - Scoundreller 2y ago
    Hockey Canada is similar. Paid out a lot of $$$ to quietly settle numerous sexual abuse claims/lawsuits. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_Canada_sexual_assault_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_Canada_sexual_assault... https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6695731 https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6695731
alistairSH 2y ago
I don't know that "normal" mountain biking is any worse than cycling in general, or sports like tackle football. A lot of the injury risk when mountain biking is reasonably easily mitigated by controlling your speed and walking the bike through terrain that's above your skill level. There was a report out of British Columbia a few months ago about injury rates, and they were high, but BC is also a major downhill trail region. Certainly, compared to road cycling, I know more people with major injuries from being hit by cars than from crashing solo on a mountain bike. And for my own cycling injuries - a few concussions, the worst of which was on the road bike (during a race) and a few torn rotator cuffs/mild AC joint separations.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Yeah. I did have a fall (for no good reason) cycling on a carriage path in Acadia National Park. But that's almost certainly safer than road biking on a busy road. And I do think a world in which you have insurance companies micromanaging what they will cover for various outdoor activities is not one we want--and it's not clear that it even distinguishes from people who are very sedentary.
- kqr 2y ago
  Another factor worth considering is that being physically active also prevents other ailments, so (even downhill) bikers may still be more profitable for insurance companies!
  - lostlogin 2y ago
    I couldn’t agree more. Road biking has entirely fixed my lower back and neck issues, my knees have come right and getting up hills has knocked 15-20kgs off me in the last year. I just wish I could get out there more.
- mindcrime 2y ago
  The way I always looked at it (based on my own anecdotal experience, plus those of my friends around me)... you're probably more likely to get "hurt" in some sense while mountain biking, but probably more likely to get "killed or maimed" while road cycling (eg, being struck by a car). Curiously enough, I have been road cycling for 10+ years now (and mountain biking much longer) and I only just picked up my first crash and injury from road cycling on Jan 1. I crashed and sprained my wrist. :-(
Daneel_ 2y ago
No? I’ve been mountain biking for over 20 years and never any broken bones or had to go to hospital as a result, despite doing downhill, trials, and dirt jumping. And I have 20 years of fitness to show for it - that’s about as positive as it gets.
- sejje 2y ago
  You haven't addressed the argument (riskiness of the activity) with your anecdote.
  - grayhatter 2y ago
    That was his point, or if it wasn't it's my point. It's a physical activity, one that from my POV improves health much more than reduces it. Take the hypothetical where he doesn't ever find a replacement activity, and instead of being fit becomes obese and depressed. that would be worse for society than mountain biking wouldn't it? For society only; what's the TCO of a mountain biking injury times the rate of injuries, over the TCO of obesity and depression times the likelihood a sedentary lifestyle results? without access to that data, his anecdote does appear to be a stronger argument than literally no data, no?
- _Algernon_ 2y ago
  Get 8 billion people to flip a coin 30 times in a row, and one is likely to get heads 30 times in a row. It means nothing.
  - Fricken 2y ago
    He's been flipping the same coin for 20 years and it has never come up tails. That's quite the coin. There is no data set more relevant to a person than their own experience. Meanwhile I don't have enough fingers and toes to count up all the people I've known personally who have been killed or crippled in auto collisions.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
_Algernon_ 2y ago
Why should you be forced to pay insurance if you don't endanger others? Most situations where you are forced to have insurance are cases where others are endangered (eg. driving).
- ghaff 2y ago
  You mostly aren't. But you're also foolish to not carry health insurance and homeowner's insurance (even aside of liability) in the US.
bombcar 2y ago
Trampolines are indicated because YOUR home insurance could be on the hook for someone ELSE being hurt on your trampoline. And it's easy for them to exclude it. Medical insurance generally covers your own accidents/mistakes, because it's not like you're going out searching for them for fun.
- tomjakubowski 2y ago
  > Medical insurance generally covers your own accidents/mistakes, because it's not like you're going out searching for them for fun. I wonder if the guys from Jackass had trouble finding health insurance.
grayhatter 2y ago
this is such a wild take to me... it's impossible to quantity at what point something becomes a net negative for society. Smoking seems to be an obvious example, because it's addictive quality inhibits a fair decision to the smoker, and it's something with a lifelong pathology. But trampolines and mountain biking are both activities that result in ephemeral injuries. There is the rare case where a particular injury might become chronic, but how is that a drain on society, and not primarily the individual? by your logic, should we also ban (or require insurance?) for football (hand egg), boxing, martial arts, (Tai chi?), cars, religion, guns, knives, prescription medicine, children, leaving your house at all? edit; I'm happy to steal more ideas from sibling comments! I already stole football, but now I want to add obesity, and all mental health conditions. I'm really curious about the context the idea of net negative comes from, but I probably should also take a stab at a conclusion; why contrast individual actions and decisions in the context of society at all? The decision to do anything should stop at 1st order, and maybe 2nd order effects. That is to say, when trying to improve society, it's fair to look down into smoking and say, we should spend attention on fixing this. But it's incorrect to look at an individual decision "should I smoke" and weight it's effects on society. (How will this effect my family, or my environment is 2nd order, and should be accounted for)
- layer8 2y ago
  I agree that a ban doesn’t make sense, but even “ephemeral” injuries routinely generate significant costs. (In my experience, musculoskeletal injuries are rarely completely ephemeral, they tend to have long-term effects, even if minor.)
  - grayhatter 2y ago
    I'm gonna call that sample bias. If you exclude all injuries that are ephemeral, (because they don't get reported, because they're ephemeral, and forgotten), you're left with the injuries that aren't ephemeral. I mean duh, obviously lol. But my point is still, yes injuries are bad, and as a society, we're pretty trash at healing them, but injuries are more impactful for the individual, than for society. And bonus point; if we're talking about sociatial responsabilities, given injuries are unavoidable, shouldn't we be trying to fix our responses to them rather than trying to limit people from enjoying life? Mountain biking in fun, so are trampolines. Strictly speaking, the world where we've solved injuries (think any sci-fi pantopia) is better than the world where we didn't because we just outlawed getting injured.
SomaticPirate 2y ago
By this logic, most software engineers would also be considered high risk since they work a sedentary job and have higher risks for heart disease and obesity (which likely leads to higher healthcare costs over the long term)
myheartisinohio 2y ago
People slip in the shower so lets stop bathing.
- Qem 2y ago
  We probably should have lanyard-equipped showers.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    people will hang themselves on the lanyard and die. Not all such cases will be suicide.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Why do you suppose hotel showers all have grip bars?
    - ghaff 2y ago
      All? Ha ha.
- marssaxman 2y ago
  I've been advocating mandatory shower-helmet laws for many years now; it would make as much sense as a lot of the other nanny-state regulation does.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    On the other hand, mandatory rough surfaces on the floor of showers seem pretty reasonable.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      There's so much about showers in hotels that I hate a good proportion of the time: super-slick tiles, high step-in tubs, accompanied by no handholds. I've gotten more sensitive to this over time but even when I was much younger, nearly took spills a couple of times.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
wiether 2y ago
I'm all in behind your idea: let's do the net result for society of every activity, and mandate people to do the most positive one, while banning the most negative ones! The good thing is, then, I'll be mandated to go mountainbiking instead of staying sitted in front of a computer all day long! How can I vote for your program?
marssaxman 2y ago
Telling people they're not allowed to have fun in the manner of their choosing because it would be bad for society sounds like a great way to discourage people from caring about society.
webnrrd2k 2y ago
There is no specific insurance required that I'm aware of... It's an activity that's well within the normal allowance of jackassery that everyone is entitled to. I think that a big part of the issue is that banning it sounds a little like banning all sex because someone might get a venereal disease. Yeah, maybe there are some negatives, but there are also a lot of positives, and people are really like the positives.

Given the amount of injuries related to mountain biking, is there some specific insurance needed for it? It seems one of those "net-negative for the society activities", like trampolines.

erikerikson 2y ago

Kids have so much joy on trampolines! I know they have dangers but net negative? Do you have data or anything?

ghaff 2y ago

In general, "society" deciding what activities are too dangerous to routinely allow is a really nasty slope. Yes, there's some special insurance offered through private organizations for things like higher altitude mountaineering. But it's not that big a step to rule that any contact sport, for example, should require special insurance. I'm sure the insurance companies wouldn't mind.

4ggr0 2y ago
One thing which comes to mind is - why should we stop at sports, then? we'll immediately be at the point where smokers, alcoholics, obese people etc. should pay more, after all, their way of life statistically causes higher costs. (i don't think either of those things should result in higher insurance prices, just continuing the thought.)
- doix 2y ago
  > we'll immediately be at the point where smokers, alcoholics, obese people etc. should pay more, after all, their way of life statistically causes higher costs. Wait, do they not? I genuinely assumed they did. I remember when I got private insurance through my work I had to fill in some questionnaire. It was "free", but it was a taxable benefit so you knew how much you were costing the company and me and my friends had different rates. I wonder what the actual statistics are when it comes to costs with active people that are more likely to be injured vs obese people that are less likely to be injured but more likely to suffer obesity related illnesses.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Private life insurance may. I don't think health insurance generally does. Certainly Medicare doesn't ask about any of those things.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      Health insurance can't ask about this since ACA (I think). Life insurance can and often requires an actual physical exam. And can exclude specific activities such as flying on small private aircraft from coverage.
  - philwelch 2y ago
    Health insurance premiums used to be different based on whether or not you smoked; maybe they still are. It would still be nice if you could lower your health insurance premiums by losing weight or buying a policy that didn’t cover mountain bike injuries or whatnot.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      At a former company, there was some trivial discount for an annual health care screening which I stopped doing because it was trivial and something that wasn't between me and my doctor. I would absolutely not sign onto a screening that invasively wanted to know about specific athletic or other activities of that sort. (Which would probably also give the insurance company untold levers to deny your claim.) "Oh, you said you don't rock climb, well that 'hike' looks like a rock climb to us."
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    >> we'll immediately be at the point where smokers [...] should pay more, after all, their way of life statistically causes higher costs. > Wait, do they not? Why should they? It's not obvious at all that smoking causes higher costs; a smoker who gets lung cancer is a smoker who never needs the medical care we give to the elderly.
    - webmaven 2y ago
- corobo 2y ago
  You mean like an additional tax on tobacco, alcohol, and sugar? You're behind the times lol -- UK
- Zanfa 2y ago
  Some countries tax tobacco, alcohol and sugar at higher rates to offset the costs incurred to society?
- AngryData 2y ago
  I don't know about alcoholics, but smokers and obese people actually cost less in medical care because they usually die before age-related diseases takes hold which are the most expensive, they most often die of heart attack and stroke which are the cheapest deaths, and being fat or a smoker disqualifies you from many procedures and operations that they otherwise would do without hesitation. On top of that for smokers, the amount of sin taxes they pay on cigarettes over their lifetime almost always exceeds their entire life-time medical costs.
- autoexec 2y ago
  insurance companies already buy up information from data brokers and use that to jack up people's rates according to whatever they happen to find to justify it. They won't tell you when they do it, you'll just be offered a very different price than you would have been given if you didn't buy as much alcohol, spent more time at the gym, only drove your car in the daytime, or lived in a different zip code.
- cma 2y ago
  Aren't there already insurance rebates in the US or something for tobacco-free attestation?
parineum 2y ago
I play recreational hockey. All of the rinks around here (and most of the US) require membership to USA Hockey which, among other things, provides some kind of insurance to both the rinks and the players. https://www.usahockey.com/insurancemanagement https://www.usahockey.com/insurancemanagement
- ghaff 2y ago
  That must be relatively new. Never heard of such a thing. Wonder if it's a reason my undergrad really cut back on intramural hockey.
- Scoundreller 2y ago
  Hockey Canada is similar. Paid out a lot of $$$ to quietly settle numerous sexual abuse claims/lawsuits. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_Canada_sexual_assault_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_Canada_sexual_assault... https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6695731 https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6695731

alistairSH 2y ago

I don't know that "normal" mountain biking is any worse than cycling in general, or sports like tackle football. A lot of the injury risk when mountain biking is reasonably easily mitigated by controlling your speed and walking the bike through terrain that's above your skill level. There was a report out of British Columbia a few months ago about injury rates, and they were high, but BC is also a major downhill trail region. Certainly, compared to road cycling, I know more people with major injuries from being hit by cars than from crashing solo on a mountain bike. And for my own cycling injuries - a few concussions, the worst of which was on the road bike (during a race) and a few torn rotator cuffs/mild AC joint separations.

ghaff 2y ago
Yeah. I did have a fall (for no good reason) cycling on a carriage path in Acadia National Park. But that's almost certainly safer than road biking on a busy road. And I do think a world in which you have insurance companies micromanaging what they will cover for various outdoor activities is not one we want--and it's not clear that it even distinguishes from people who are very sedentary.
kqr 2y ago
Another factor worth considering is that being physically active also prevents other ailments, so (even downhill) bikers may still be more profitable for insurance companies!
- lostlogin 2y ago
  I couldn’t agree more. Road biking has entirely fixed my lower back and neck issues, my knees have come right and getting up hills has knocked 15-20kgs off me in the last year. I just wish I could get out there more.
mindcrime 2y ago
The way I always looked at it (based on my own anecdotal experience, plus those of my friends around me)... you're probably more likely to get "hurt" in some sense while mountain biking, but probably more likely to get "killed or maimed" while road cycling (eg, being struck by a car). Curiously enough, I have been road cycling for 10+ years now (and mountain biking much longer) and I only just picked up my first crash and injury from road cycling on Jan 1. I crashed and sprained my wrist. :-(

Daneel_ 2y ago

No? I’ve been mountain biking for over 20 years and never any broken bones or had to go to hospital as a result, despite doing downhill, trials, and dirt jumping. And I have 20 years of fitness to show for it - that’s about as positive as it gets.

sejje 2y ago
You haven't addressed the argument (riskiness of the activity) with your anecdote.
- grayhatter 2y ago
  That was his point, or if it wasn't it's my point. It's a physical activity, one that from my POV improves health much more than reduces it. Take the hypothetical where he doesn't ever find a replacement activity, and instead of being fit becomes obese and depressed. that would be worse for society than mountain biking wouldn't it? For society only; what's the TCO of a mountain biking injury times the rate of injuries, over the TCO of obesity and depression times the likelihood a sedentary lifestyle results? without access to that data, his anecdote does appear to be a stronger argument than literally no data, no?
_Algernon_ 2y ago
Get 8 billion people to flip a coin 30 times in a row, and one is likely to get heads 30 times in a row. It means nothing.
- Fricken 2y ago
  He's been flipping the same coin for 20 years and it has never come up tails. That's quite the coin. There is no data set more relevant to a person than their own experience. Meanwhile I don't have enough fingers and toes to count up all the people I've known personally who have been killed or crippled in auto collisions.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago

_Algernon_ 2y ago

Why should you be forced to pay insurance if you don't endanger others? Most situations where you are forced to have insurance are cases where others are endangered (eg. driving).

ghaff 2y ago
You mostly aren't. But you're also foolish to not carry health insurance and homeowner's insurance (even aside of liability) in the US.

bombcar 2y ago

Trampolines are indicated because YOUR home insurance could be on the hook for someone ELSE being hurt on your trampoline. And it's easy for them to exclude it. Medical insurance generally covers your own accidents/mistakes, because it's not like you're going out searching for them for fun.

tomjakubowski 2y ago
> Medical insurance generally covers your own accidents/mistakes, because it's not like you're going out searching for them for fun. I wonder if the guys from Jackass had trouble finding health insurance.

grayhatter 2y ago

this is such a wild take to me... it's impossible to quantity at what point something becomes a net negative for society. Smoking seems to be an obvious example, because it's addictive quality inhibits a fair decision to the smoker, and it's something with a lifelong pathology. But trampolines and mountain biking are both activities that result in ephemeral injuries. There is the rare case where a particular injury might become chronic, but how is that a drain on society, and not primarily the individual? by your logic, should we also ban (or require insurance?) for football (hand egg), boxing, martial arts, (Tai chi?), cars, religion, guns, knives, prescription medicine, children, leaving your house at all? edit; I'm happy to steal more ideas from sibling comments! I already stole football, but now I want to add obesity, and all mental health conditions. I'm really curious about the context the idea of net negative comes from, but I probably should also take a stab at a conclusion; why contrast individual actions and decisions in the context of society at all? The decision to do anything should stop at 1st order, and maybe 2nd order effects. That is to say, when trying to improve society, it's fair to look down into smoking and say, we should spend attention on fixing this. But it's incorrect to look at an individual decision "should I smoke" and weight it's effects on society. (How will this effect my family, or my environment is 2nd order, and should be accounted for)

layer8 2y ago
I agree that a ban doesn’t make sense, but even “ephemeral” injuries routinely generate significant costs. (In my experience, musculoskeletal injuries are rarely completely ephemeral, they tend to have long-term effects, even if minor.)
- grayhatter 2y ago
  I'm gonna call that sample bias. If you exclude all injuries that are ephemeral, (because they don't get reported, because they're ephemeral, and forgotten), you're left with the injuries that aren't ephemeral. I mean duh, obviously lol. But my point is still, yes injuries are bad, and as a society, we're pretty trash at healing them, but injuries are more impactful for the individual, than for society. And bonus point; if we're talking about sociatial responsabilities, given injuries are unavoidable, shouldn't we be trying to fix our responses to them rather than trying to limit people from enjoying life? Mountain biking in fun, so are trampolines. Strictly speaking, the world where we've solved injuries (think any sci-fi pantopia) is better than the world where we didn't because we just outlawed getting injured.

SomaticPirate 2y ago

By this logic, most software engineers would also be considered high risk since they work a sedentary job and have higher risks for heart disease and obesity (which likely leads to higher healthcare costs over the long term)

myheartisinohio 2y ago

People slip in the shower so lets stop bathing.

Qem 2y ago
We probably should have lanyard-equipped showers.
- bluGill 2y ago
  people will hang themselves on the lanyard and die. Not all such cases will be suicide.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Why do you suppose hotel showers all have grip bars?
  - ghaff 2y ago
    All? Ha ha.
marssaxman 2y ago
I've been advocating mandatory shower-helmet laws for many years now; it would make as much sense as a lot of the other nanny-state regulation does.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  On the other hand, mandatory rough surfaces on the floor of showers seem pretty reasonable.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    There's so much about showers in hotels that I hate a good proportion of the time: super-slick tiles, high step-in tubs, accompanied by no handholds. I've gotten more sensitive to this over time but even when I was much younger, nearly took spills a couple of times.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

wiether 2y ago

I'm all in behind your idea: let's do the net result for society of every activity, and mandate people to do the most positive one, while banning the most negative ones! The good thing is, then, I'll be mandated to go mountainbiking instead of staying sitted in front of a computer all day long! How can I vote for your program?

marssaxman 2y ago

Telling people they're not allowed to have fun in the manner of their choosing because it would be bad for society sounds like a great way to discourage people from caring about society.

webnrrd2k 2y ago

There is no specific insurance required that I'm aware of... It's an activity that's well within the normal allowance of jackassery that everyone is entitled to. I think that a big part of the issue is that banning it sounds a little like banning all sex because someone might get a venereal disease. Yeah, maybe there are some negatives, but there are also a lot of positives, and people are really like the positives.