Most injuries in winter sports occur at the beginning of the year and during the skiing holiday weeks.
For ordinary people From the point of view of insurance companies, the most dangerous winter sports for fitness enthusiasts are skiing, downhill skiing and skating. Active enthusiasts, on the other hand, suffer the most injuries in hockey, according to If and LähiTapiola.
“A lot of injuries happen to active enthusiasts also in skiing, snowboarding, figure skating and ring skating,” says the product manager of personal insurance at the insurance company If Mirva Vahvelainen.
According to If's injury statistics, injuries related to cross-country skiing became wildly more common in the first years of the corona pandemic, but have since leveled off. On the other hand, skiing injuries have been decreasing for a long time. Vahvelainen suspects that the sport has lost its most grown-up enthusiasts and has not gained new ones at the same pace.
Winter cycling, which has greatly increased in popularity, does not show up significantly in injury statistics.
According to insurance companies, the majority of winter sports injuries occur at the beginning of the year and during the ski holiday weeks.
“Even though this winter we got snow all over Finland already in November, we didn't notice a spike in the number of damages – only slips that happened while jogging were slightly more than usual in November,” says LähiTapiola's compensation services expert Sari Laakso.
If According to Vahvelainen, knee and shoulder injuries are the most common for those who exercise regularly. Up to half of the skiing injuries compensated by the company happen to people aged 41–65. Among active people, injuries are most common between 12 and 17 years old and most typically affect the ankles, knees, fingers, shoulders and wrists.
“For 12- to 17-year-olds, the amount of practice usually increases a lot and the hobby becomes more competitive. The injury statistics are also represented by so-called amateur athletes, who start exercising after a longer break or start inexperienced in a new sport,” says Vahvelainen.
Based on LähiTapiola's customer data, skiing injuries that require treatment occur most often to the elderly, and the underlying cause is often a loss of balance. Skiing injuries are mostly minor sprains or fractures, while in skiing and snowboarding, for example, there are clearly more serious injuries: you fall at high speed or on a jump, or you collide with, for example, other riders, and in the worst case, injuries to the spine or head area can occur.
“The best way to prevent serious head injuries is to wear a helmet, and to our delight we have noticed that the use of helmets has increased,” says Laakso.
Near Tapiolan According to Laakso, the compensations paid for winter sports injuries range between one hundred euros and hundreds of thousands of euros. For example, sprain injuries often only require one visit to the doctor, while injuries that require surgery can easily cost several thousand euros. The largest compensation amounts are typically based on some kind of permanent disability, such as brain damage.
“Compensations of hundreds of thousands of euros are very rare, and usually even the largest compensations are at most tens of thousands of euros,” says Laakso.
In If, the average compensation amount for winter sports injuries is 400–450 euros.
Winter sports injuries reimbursed, for example, from accident insurance and travel insurance. Based on Finanssiala ry's 2022 insurance survey, 45 percent of Finnish adults had leisure accident insurance at that time. The amount of insurance has been increasing, says Mirva Vahvelainen from If.
Vahvelainen reminds that there are also winter sports that are basically not insured at all or that are only insured with a higher premium based on high risk.
For example, If and LähiTapiola do not insure against speed and descent at all. Insurance companies regularly review the development of species and, if necessary, species are added or removed from the risk lists.
More expensive, high-risk sports include, for example, downhill skating, motor sports and off-piste skiing, i.e. skiing and snowboarding outside marked routes.
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