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Modern skiing in North America is often credited to Scandinavian prospectors and miners who migrated to Canada and the US to find their fortune in the gold rushes of the mid-1800s. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, the Scandinavian prospectors used wooden “snowshoes” or “gliding shoes” up to 4m long to help them travel across snowy terrain and also to compete in downhill races.
The first recorded ski outing in Canada was a trip by a Norwegian man living in Montreal, called Mr. A. Birch. He skied from Montréal to Québec in 1879 on a 3 m pair of “patent Norwegian snowshoes” using a single pole. In the next 30 years, the popularity of the sport shot up in Canada, with major ski clubs springing up in Montréal (1904), Québec and Toronto (1908) and Ottawa (1910).
By 1917, Canada’s first professional ski instructor, Emile Cochand, built the first Canadian ski resort, Chalet Cochand, in Ste-Marguerite, Qué – and the rest is history. In the first half of the 20th century, more and more ski resorts started shooting up, including the resorts at: Mont Sainte-Anne (Québec), Mont Tremblant (Québec), Lake Louise (Alberta), and Cypress Mountain (Vancouver).
Fast-forward to 2018, and we still love throwing ourselves down mountains on a pair of sticks – albeit fibreglass or carbon fibre-reinforced sticks as opposed to the basic wooden ones used back in the day. The difference is that today’s ski resorts are high-tech facilities, featuring gondolas with heated seats (particularly good for those learning to snowboard), freestyle parks, extra activities like tubing and ski biking, and lots of food and drink stops.
As Canadian ski resorts have evolved over the past century, so to have their insurance needs. The MountainGuard program, underwritten by AmWINS Program Underwriters, is the largest writer of ski resort insurance in North America. It wrote its first ski resort insurance policy in 1962 and has since evolved alongside North American ski resorts to meet their ever-changing needs.
MountainGuard is designed to provide broad, flexible coverage for all standard alpine ski operations in Canada and the United States. Standard operations include: ski schools, ski shops and rentals, lodging, food and beverage, as well as coverage for most summer operations and property exposures. The insurance coverages offered include: general liability, umbrella liability, excess liability, property, electronic data processing, inland marine, commercial automobile, directors’ and officers’ liability, employment practices liability, terrorism and environmental impairment liability.
“The MountainGuard program has been around for 56 years, and it has stayed with the exact same carrier – AmWINS – for that whole period of time. That relationship in itself is impressive, unique and something people should be proud of,” said James Kelley, senior vice president, underwriting officer at AmWINS Program Underwriters. “Another element that makes MountainGuard unique is that the program is made up of true ski industry professionals, from the underwriters, to the claims adjusters, and the team responsible for overseeing insurance sales and distribution. They all have a passion for the ski industry, they know its nuances and its risks, and they have important connections in the ski industry. It’s a very holistic solution for the ski industry, which is why a lot of resorts are attracted to MountainGuard.”
Ski resorts today will lose money if they’re only a one trick pony. They can’t afford to only open for a few months during the ski season and then shut down for the rest of the year. Resorts are looking to their insurers, such as MountainGuard, to help them expand their offerings to visitors and take on new risks all year around.
“For some time, mountain resorts have been expanding their operations into non-ski activities for the off-season months,” Kelley told Insurance Business. “Summer operations might include things like zip-lining, mountain biking, and other recreational activities. Mountain resorts are continuing to invest in opportunities that will excite and entice visitors throughout the year, and MountainGuard aims to support the resort community in that.”
