At first glance the European model of buying rescue insurance seems atttractive. However I'm not convinced it would be all that workable in the US. (Note that I only have very limited experience in Europe, so any of our members from that part of the world feel free to correct me if I've got any of the following wrong.)

As I understand it the European system is focused on mountaineers, and climbing is highly concentrated in the Alps. Mountain rescue is handled by a small number of national rescue services. These folks operate out of a small number of centrally located bases, and are paid, full time professionals. They have highly trained rescuers, helicopters, physicians, dogs, etc available 24/7. Climbers are billed for rescues, so climbers buy insurance ahead of time from their national alpine clubs. Outside of the Alps Western Europe doesn't have, for the most part, that many large wilderness areas where people recreate. All this paid and insured rescue activity happens in the Alps.

In North America, on the other hand, climbing areas are much more dispersed. There are climbing areas in many states, and in almost every region of the country. Because our areas are so dispersed, having a full time paid rescue staff would be very inefficient and costly. Unlike Europe we also have large areas of wild and semi-wild land, particularly in the western states. That wild land is administered by a wide range of entities (national parks, national forests, county, state, tribal, private etc). We have large numbers of people doing all sorts of activities in the out of doors on those lands. Much of it is recreation, but a lot of people are out there for work. Most of these people are doing things that are not usually all that risky. Yet from time to time these folks become subjects for SAR. Sometimes from doing dumb things, but often from shear bad luck.

For example, take a look at the Oregon Department of Emergency Management publication on Search and Rescue: Accumulated Totals for 1997 to 2013. The maps show that these searches and rescue happen all over the state. When looking at the activities of the people rescued (page 37), you will also see that all sorts of people doing pretty ordinary things get rescued. Note that climbers are way down the list. In fact the second highest number are "Motor Vehicles". You might recall that some years back there was a huge search in Oregon for the Kim family, who simply got lost while driving from Portland to the coast. Now the Kim's certainly did some dumb things, but I doubt they thought they were doing anything risky, and they probably would not have bought rescue insurance. (I myself grew up in the Northwest, and I have gotten really lost on some of those logging roads. I was just lucky enough to find my way back before I got stuck.)

In Alaska, just about everyone does something outdoors. Fishing, hunting, berry picking, hiking, XC skiing, snow machining, running on trails, walking their dogs, kids playing in the woods on the edge of town. Just about all of these folks can and sometimes do become subjects for SAR missions. Virtually everyone in Alaska is a potential SAR mission at sometime or another. Maybe even you!

Hence to make a European climber insurance type system work for us, EVERYONE would need to pay for insurance. And that would mean we would need yet another bureacracy to administer that system. Somebody would need to collect the money, mail out the cards, check to see if you paid etc etc etc. I don't think we need more bureaucrats. Since to make it work fairly, nearly everyone (not just climbers) would need to buy into it, why would that be any different than just doing it the way we do it now? Nearly everyone pays taxes in some form or another. Why is making a separate rescue insurance fee more fair? Just to create a new bureacracy? Do we really need the "Alaska State Office of Search and Rescue Insurance Administration" in a big new building in downtown Anchorage? And a similar office and bureacracy in each of the other 49 states?

I think not.