13 March 2008

Ultimate Travel Insurance Guide

There has been a lot of noise recently around travel insurance’s benefits and small prints, even doubts on its actually need. Theory says travel insurance is there to provide you with financial protection if something goes wrong when travelling. Obviously when travelling you don’t have access to National Health Services and sometimes tariffs for covering medical emergencies can be as steep as £50,000 for a heart attack in USA or around £17,000 for a broken leg in Europe. Additionally, there is always the unavoidable prospect of luggage loss or damage.

In the end of the day the decision for or against taking on travel insurance comes down to ones belief everything will go as planned, One way or another, pay offs to contracts ratio is really really, really low. But the threat always lurks, especially with luggage when visiting exotic destinations and accidents when on the so popular ski holidays.

Since you have decided in benefit of your own safety to take on travel insurance at least do it properly, making sure it covers the full length of your holidays and what’s the coverage for any sports or activities you planning to get the thrills of, meaning if you have started doing your stretching for hitting the slopes a contract covering winter sports is essential. Unfortunately insurance companies make it more and more complicated and do expect any claims to be paid off by the company “in their own time”. So in that example, check for mountain rescue and repatriation services as well to avoid disappointment and huge costs – helicopter charges vary from £3000 - £5000 per hour.

Selecting the best deal can prove to become an additional headache, having to choose first a one off deal or an annual. The later will definitely save you time and money if you fall under the spontaneous adventurer category but you have to check again the coverage. Relax, the difficult part is over as selecting a company has become very easy. The market has been so prosperous that Internet comparison services thrive nowadays. Online comparison sites like confused.com, moneysupermarket and kelkoo.co.uk search through the entire insurance market and compare different packages and deals on a user-friendly platform, simple to use even for the most confused fools.

2 comments:

Poetryman said...

the cost benefit analysis would enter into play for me. how expensive is the trip would be the main thing. a possibility might be the rarety. a once in a life time thing like say being present at a total eclipse at the top of Mt Kilimanjaro

Anonymous said...

Most people are unaware that their employee benefits package may contain travel coverage. Check your group insurance first to see if you have travel insurance, and what it covers. You may only need to buy supplemental top-up insurance if at all. Of course, for adventure travel insurance, you'll need to buy that separately.