Depends on how you look at it.

We are fragile creatures and the world is a fairly dangerous place. People die every day driving cars, riding bikes, going for walks—doing things far more mundane than cave-diving.

If taking a walk is as dangerous as cave diving - then yes, I'd consider moving.

If you want to reduce the risks in riding a motorcycle, you can drive slower, in dry conditions during the day. I'm not sure exploring uncharted underwater caves is the slow lane..

True, so let's not take to the extreme. Risk-adversion is a quantitative, not qualitative, practise.

I'm not saying minimising risk is the only goal in life, but avoiding very high risks is - do you think cave diving is no riskier than driving a car on the motorway?

Taking a specific incident and combining it with "that sounds dangerous" is not likely to come up with anything meaningful.

But maybe - you'd need a proper analysis of the relative risk. Isn't that done with cars/driving? All sorts of vehicle legislation may be driven (npi) by driving incident data / risk analysis.

> Taking a specific incident and combining it with "that sounds dangerous"

I'm not. I think it sounds dangerous before this specific incident. But you are right - a meaningful, proper analysis would be appropriate. I'm not saying my suggestion is enough, I am saying, maybe something formal would be appropriate.

Maybe you should just base it on what a given repetitive activity does to your life insurance premiums.

OP is between "extra premium" and "cannot get coverage"

The bit that's incorrect here is that "free climbing" encompasses many forms of rock climbing. "Free" in the context of "free climbing" means that vertical progress is made solely by climbing the rock itself.

This is as compared to "aid climbing", wherein vertical progress may be made by affixing some form of gear to the rock, and climbing said gear, or something attached to it.

The article most likely means that if you free solo, you're uninsurable. Solo in this case meaning, without a partner to catch your falls.

E.T.A. Note also the existence of "aid soloing", and "rope soloing", both of which are done without a partner, but with varying degrees of gear in place to catch you should you fall.

Also note that absent the qualification of "soloing", rock climbing is generally understood among climbers to mean the kind that is done with a partner and a rope. Among climbers, bouldering is understood to include climbing routes of low height ("problems") without the protection of a rope, but generally with the protection of a crash pad (big foam thing to land on).