Editor’s note: First published November 2022 | Refreshed November 2025 with updated insurer data, added underwriting insights & reinstated the original James Bond intro.
Quick summary: Love scuba, skydiving or motorsport? You can still get life insurance — you’ll just pay a bit extra. The trick is matching your pastime with the insurer that understands it rather than panics about it.
If you fancy yourself as the next James Bond — minus the tux and Aston Martin — and you’re wondering how your thrill-seeking ways might hit your wallet, you’re in the right place.
Most people want to spend as little as possible on life insurance and mortgage protection.
Same here.
But if you spend weekends lobbing yourself out of planes, diving off cliffs or hammering round Mondello, you’re not going to quit just to shave a few euro off your premium.
So let’s look at how your high-octane weekends affect your life insurance and mortgage protection in Ireland.
Life insurance pricing comes down to risk.
If your Tuesday evening involves exploring shipwrecks while Cliff next door massacres “Wonderwall” on the geetar, you’re the one more likely to make a claim. Insurers aren’t being killjoys — they just like predictable customers and steady cashflow.
Imagine you sign a €1 million policy and two weeks later become the first confirmed Great White snack off Dalkey Bay. Your family gets a million quid after you’ve paid one premium. Brilliant for them; disastrous for the insurer’s spreadsheet.
No AI wizardry here — you’ll get a good old-fashioned questionnaire. Typical examples:
Your answers help the underwriter decide if you’re a mild, moderate or substantial risk.
Different insurers rate the same hobby very differently — which is why having a broker in your corner matters.
Picture an office full of people who love spreadsheets and mutter “hmm” a lot.
They don’t care about danger; they care about predictability. They sort applications into boxes like “Standard”, “Special Risk”, and “Good luck to him”.
If they can see clear rules and safety certs for your sport, they relax. If you’re the guy winging it with a GoPro strapped to his helmet, they start typing numbers with extra zeros.
Your job — and mine — is to make their job as boring as possible.
Indoor climbing with crash mats = fine.
Free-climbing the Cliffs of Moher = madness in their eyes.
One-off holiday madness? They’ll ignore it.
A regular habit? Expect a loading.
Every insurer has its own pricing grid, but roughly:
Real-world example: One client of mine in Cork dives to 75 metres using a Closed-Circuit Rebreather. He pays about €1,400 extra a year on a €500 k policy — and he still got cover because we matched him with the right insurer.
👉 Be honest about your hobby from the start. Trying to hide it just creates refusals later.
👉 Get a broker to do a pre-submission to all five Irish insurers so you don’t have five applications floating around with different answers.
👉 Show proof of training or club membership — insurers love anything that suggests you’re not a lunatic.
👉 If you ever retire from the sport, tell them. They’ll remove the loading and your premium drops. That’s a win.
You might be tempted to “forget” the odd risky weekend to save a few euro.
Don’t.
For the love of Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey, tell the truth.
If you die doing something you didn’t disclose, the insurer can void the policy and your family gets zilch. That’s not a story you want told at the wake.
Mini client story: Jason, a motorbike racer from Galway, initially left his track-day habit off his form. When we redid the application honestly, one insurer still gave him standard rates because he was amateur-level with safety training. Being upfront saved him from potential future disaster.
Income protection is less forgiving — most policies exclude accidents from dangerous sports. If you snap an ankle skydiving, you’re on your own. Always read the schedule or ask me to check it for you.
If you spend Monday on a roof and Saturday racing down one, your occupation matters too. See Life Insurance for Dangerous Jobs in Ireland for how insurers handle that combo.
Insurers base loadings on accident data. It sounds cold, but it’s just maths — more risk equals higher price. If you’re curious, see our Life Assurance Loading Hub for the logic behind the numbers and tips to reduce them.
You can’t insure common sense, but you can insure yourself. So if you’re going to jump out of a plane, at least make sure your parachute — and your policy — both work properly.
Getting life cover with a risky hobby isn’t impossible — you just need someone who knows which insurer won’t faint when they hear “wingsuit”.
🎯 Ready to see what it’ll cost?
Fill in my financial questionnaire and I’ll shop around for you while you plan your next mad outing.
Or book a callback here for a quick chat — no hold music, just straight talk.
Thanks for reading,
Nick McGowan – QFA RPA APA | Life Insurance Broker of the Year 2022
About Nick →
As Ireland's leading life insurance broker, we specialise in comparing the rates and policies from the top five Irish life insurance providers and offering the very best value quotes to suit the individual needs of our clients. Our expertise lies in finding a suitable insurance plan for those with specific needs, be it a particular illness, occupation or claim history, we've got you covered in every sense!
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