Travel Insurance – How to Get the Best Deal
Posted on | December 16, 2009 | 9 Comments
Taking out travel insurance before heading off for a holiday outside the UK should be an easy task. But how do you ensure that you get a good deal?
There are two key ways of doing so.
The first is always to shop around. Prices vary considerably between insurers and your personal circumstances can make a huge difference to the policy.
The second is to ask yourself how many times you intend to travel within a year. If you are certain you will only travel once, then cheap travel insurance can quite easily be found in the form of a single-trip policy for as little as £9.
If you intend to travel two or more times then this could prove to be expensive, especially for families.
This is where a multi-trip policy will come to your rescue. Many family policies cover not just the adult couple but several children. They can be found for as little as £23 for a single person and allow you to make several trips abroad during the year.
As you can imagine, if you intend to travel abroad three times a year and pay £9 each time, while a multi-trip comes in at around £23 per person, you’ve just saved £4.
This might sound like a small saving but as you start to increase the number of trips per year and the number of people travelling on one policy, the saving you make on your travel insurance becomes much bigger.
However, there is one crucial point to remember. While we all like to find the cheapest travel insurance before we go abroad, we shouldn’t lose sight of the reasons for buying the cover in the first place.
It can be easy to look only for the cheapest policy in an effort to save money, but the reality is you could be missing out on vital aspects of cover.
For example, you must remember to check a prospective holiday insurance policy to ensure all the features you require are covered. You should look to have cover in the following areas: cancellation, medical and emergency, baggage, theft and personal liability.
You should seek medical cover to the value of £1 million when travelling in Europe and £2 million in the USA. Hospital bills can escalate extremely quickly and it is not unheard of for tourists to be quite literally bankrupted.
Of course some of these options can be taken off the policy if you do not need them, such as baggage cover and cancellation, although I suggest you think carefully about this beforehand.
One tip that may be worth remembering is that some household insurance policies also offer cover for personal items that are taken out of the home. In turn, this means you may be able to do without the same cover on your travel insurance policy, making it slightly cheaper – but do check your home and contents terms and conditions first.
Finally, remember that all insurers base the cover they offer on what is called “utmost good faith”. This means that for them to pay out on a claim they must be satisfied you were completely honest with them when you took out the policy.
The two key areas where this applies is in previous medical conditions, which should be declared at the outset, or the insurer may not pay out. Also, don’t fall for the temptation to over-claim for a loss: adding a non-existent MP3 player or an iPod to the claim could render your policy void.
To recap on the main points: shop around to find the best prices, choose a policy type according to your travel frequency, be sure you have the level of cover you require and last but not least, remember to be honest with all details given.
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9 Responses to “Travel Insurance – How to Get the Best Deal”
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December 16th, 2009 @ 10:12 am
If you are a group of more than 5 people and are looking for a low cost international travel insurance which provides you adequate coverage at the same time saves you more than 60% of the Average Cost, this is something which will interest you.
You may be a Cultural Group going abroad or an Incentive Group Travel Management Company taking a large group abroad. We guarantee you large savings.
Due to intense competition margins are dropping in the Group Travel Business. At the same time, you being a long term player do not want to compromise on quality of service at the cost of higher margins. So you book the best of the hotels and services for your group.
So how do you manage the margins???
How this works:
We are a consolidator and purchase bulk travel days for our large list of customers. This gives us a fantastic PER DAY rates. We stock these days with us.
Now, whenever you have a group, we sell these to you at per day costs.
Let us explain you with an example – and you would be floored.
Say you are travelling in a group of 100 people to Egypt for 4 nights – You need a Travel Insurance for say 5 days.
Now, the average cost of a normal individual travel insurance of $50000 coverage will cost you Rs. 600 per person.
For 100 people this works out to be Rs. 60000/-
In our scheme you actually pay only 100 X 5 X Rs. 40 = Rs. 20000!!!
So you get a whopping more than 60% of straight savings without compromising on quality and safety of your group members.
The policy has quite a comprehensive coverage on
Medical Insurance of $50000/$100 Deductible
Medical Repatriation & Evacuation $25000
Standard Coverages on
Personal Accident of $ 25000
Loss of Baggage and Personal Documents $300
Checked Baggage Loss $1000/single item $150
Baggage Delay $100/12 hours
Personal Liability $ 100000
To get more details on this exciting opportunity – you can email at inquiries@insurancemall.in with details of your company, group details and contact details.
December 16th, 2009 @ 10:31 am
Lloyds?
December 16th, 2009 @ 1:11 pm
An EHIC card will pay for the basic emergency cover.
In the Netherlands you will charged for a bed yes (when staying overnight). It would be wise to ensure this is covered. My mother-in-law had to stay in hospital here (Netherlands) when she was visiing, and ended up with a bill of €4000. Fortunately she had full cover and her insurance company paid for the total bill
Better to be safe than sorry!
December 16th, 2009 @ 11:45 pm
I'm a travel agent and these are the best:
AIG-which is travel guard
and CSA which is also a great option
http://www.travelguard.com
http://www.csainsurance.com
December 17th, 2009 @ 2:27 pm
The International Medical Group offers medical insurance for citizens of every country travelling world-wide (trips of 5 days – 5 years.)
IMG is an A rated carrier (by AM Best) and is underwritten by Sirius International (with offices world-wide, including the UK and the headquarters in Sweden.)
You can get more info and quotes online: https://www.imglobal.com/travelinsurance/index.cfm?IMGAC=224027&app_method=3&CFID=705225&CFTOKEN=2e7d82641e969a6a-3D0821AA-1372-4E40-F36BE0FE4ADD6A61
December 18th, 2009 @ 12:37 pm
You didn't mention if you are traveling to Orlando from within the States? If this is the case, a simple travel insurance to cover lost baggage and hotel stay (for delayed flights) should be sufficient. If you are coming from abroad, a more comprehensive Travel Insurance would be suggested. Check out the FAQ
December 19th, 2009 @ 4:48 am
Those policies are all rip offs, in my opinion. They are overpriced, but when required, are a cost of travel. I have never found a bargain, and usually just go ahead and get the one my travel agent offers.
December 19th, 2009 @ 5:13 am
Your best bet will be international medical coverage. http://www.imglobal.com/?CFID=5356048&CFTOKEN=d9be08022585fc64-85956A2E-1143-EBE5-76DC498DE8DA4D51
Since these types of policies do not cover pre-existing conditions no test will be needed. Be very careful if your granny has any medical conditions that act up the insurance won't cover it. Medical care in the US is very expensive.
Once you visit the IMGlobal.com website I suggest you call thier 800 number for assistance.
December 19th, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
Travel insurance is just like all other kinds of insurance–seems like a waste of money until something happens to you. In the US/Canada, it's relatively easy to recover if something happens during your trip and therefore I don't tend to think insurance is necessary. On an international trip, however, you probably have no idea of what could go on. If your bags are lost, if someone gets sick and has to cancel, if your flight has major delays…your travel insurance will help cover costs from all of these things. It might give you that added peace of mind.
You may also want to check your credit card policy–several cards offer travel insurance in their fine print.