A Guide to Buying Travel Insurance

As we head towards the summer and the holiday season, if you’re planning on taking a trip or two, getting your travel insurance right could not only save you a headache but also a considerable amount of money.

To help make sure you’re suitably covered when you’re abroad, we’ve put together some helpful tips on some of the things you should consider.

Single-trip vs multi-trip

Depending on how many trips you plan on taking in a 12-month period, it’s worth considering whether it may be more suitable to purchase a multi-trip policy. If you’re positive that you’re only taking one trip this year, then a single-trip policy will, of course, be the best choice. However, if you’ve got two or three trips planned over the course of 12 months, a multi-trip policy could be considerably cheaper when compared to the collective cost of individual single-trip policies. This is especially true if your holidays are lengthy breaks or quite a far distance to travel e.g. outside of Europe.

The cover limits

Unfortunately, even when you're on holiday, things can go wrong. It’s important that you read the fine print and ensure you are adequately covered for certain eventualities such as illness, accident, injury or even cancellation of the trip. For medical expenses, most insurance experts would advise cover of £2 million, and for personal liability, it is recommended your cover limit is £1 million. While some policies may offer a higher limit for these expenses, this will most likely raise the price of your premium, so you should consider if the higher limit is excessive in order to avoid paying over the odds.

The excess

Following on from cover limits, checking the excess of your cover is also vital. The excess of your claim is the amount you will be required to pay before the insurer pays out. Some policy premiums will look cheap at first glance, but it may be due to a large excess. It is possible to adjust your excess on some policies to a price you feel you are prepared to pay, however, keep in mind that this will have an impact on the premium. It is also worth remembering that some policies will include separate excess charges dependent on the incident. For example, a mugging could fall under medical costs and loss of personal belonginings, and result in excess being charged for both, so take an extra bit of time to read through all the details.

Your baggage

Baggage cover means that you are covered if your baggage is lost, stolen or damaged, with the average policy paying out in the region of £1,500. Before you add baggage cover to your travel policy, it’s worth checking if your possessions aren’t already covered under your current home contents policy. You should keep in mind that many insurers will have a limit on the payout for individual items such as phones, laptops or cameras. At times, it can be quite difficult to claim for items lost when abroad so, if possible, keep any receipts or evidence that you took the item(s) with you.

What else should you consider?

Missed departure: A travel insurance policy will cover any additional expenses that are incurred by missing your flight, due to events outside your control.

Loss of passport: Covering you for additional travel expenses as a result of replacing a lost passport.

Delay: Covering you against any delays due to adverse weather, technical issues or industrial action, however, planned strikes will not be included.

Scheduled airline failure: Covering you in the event of the airline going out of business.

Cash: Covering you for loss of or damage to money held as cash.