Travel insurance - are you missing out?

by Chris Rowlands

Each year, thousands of British tourists suffer personal injury and theft when they travel abroad. Their losses run to many millions of pounds. Yet a large number do not have any form of insurance cover, leaving them to foot hospital bills and find the money to replace items such as digital cameras and camcorders.

Of course not much thought is given to these negative aspects when planning for and booking our holiday. Indeed, this is often the last thing on our minds.

By the time you remember to purchase travel insurance or at least recognise a need for it, you may be only day's away from the start of your holiday. It is all too easy at this point to purchase the first policy you come across with a decent price tag and sometimes even this goes out of the window in your haste.

So what should you think about when considering travel insurance? The first thing is to be careful when allowing your tour operator to package your holiday insurance alongside your other travel arrangements. More often than not such policies work out much more expensive this way.

You may also find that particular travel agencies/companies are affiliated with one insurer, so you will not receive a competitive quote on your policy, or it may not cover all your precise needs.

When searching for a travel insurance policy you should be careful to look for the features you require. A good policy should provide you with a minimum of £1m in personal injury or accident cover, baggage cover, theft cover, holiday cancellation cover and public liability cover in case you are sued by a third party.

Using a comparison website can allow you to search through many insurers at once. Indeed just spending 10-15 minutes trawling round a few websites yourself will return enough quotes to allow you to make an educated decision.

To many the main aim is to find a cheap travel insurance policy, whilst this is in theory a good idea and definitely advised if you want to save those pennies, you should never lose sight of the features you require.

Nine times out of 10 you will find that the cheapest quote has the minimum features you're looking for. But you should remember that sometimes it is best to increase the cover in certain areas. A good example being travel to the USA: look to increase the cover for personal injury from £1m to £2m, as hospital costs can literally bankrupt you.

Above all, travel insurance affords you peace of mind, the knowledge that you are covered should you fall victim to an accident or have your personal possessions stolen cannot be valued highly enough.

About the Author
Chris Rowlands is a UK-based author with experience within the financial sector, specialising on insurance topics.