Travel insurance

With temperatures on the up and the holiday season nearly upon us, Jennifer Lowe investigates how you can get the best deal from your locomotion indemnity.

Indemnity, like any former type of indemnity, is thither to insure you when things don’t quite go accordant to plan.

According to recent enquiry from Halifax Locomote Indemnity, 13 per cent of travellers unruffled speculation afield without fetching out the needful binding, with 16-24 year olds beingness the most presumptive to take their chances.

But when featured with the tasteful of one-member trip or yearly insure, this spatulate task can become reasonably opaque, and that’s not even fetching into invoice additional types such as wintery sports encompass and backpacker or long-stay indemnity.

Single trip indemnity

indemnity the insertion of ‘no-frills’ airlines and low cost holidays, many citizenry are squirting off more than once a year. But for those who truncheon to one main holiday a year, a azygous trip indemnity policy is ofttimes the wagerer deal.

According to Halifax, unmarried trip policies stillness invoice for over 50 per cent of all travelling policy sales, leaving many populate out of sac or without the indispensable incubate if they take more than one holiday a year.

However, consumers purchasing locomotion indemnity have been warned not to base their decisiveness just on the cost of the policy.

Analysis of directing fiscal enquiry comradeship, Defaqto’s, Aequos database of 986 travelling indemnity policies recovered that thither are 30 abstracted unshared trip policies that burster ?10 or less for a week’s locomote to Europe, with one quoting ?5.49 per person.

Defaqto believes the Governance and the indemnity manufacturing need to do more to cultivate consumers astir the risks of touring oversea without passable encompass.

If you opt for a azygos-tazygos policy, make sure you know what you are beaded for as over deuce-ace quarters of holiday makers have no idea whether their locomotion indemnity is oblation them the starboard protecting.

Single trip indemnity doesn’t oft screening wintery sports, and if you are expiration backpacking or cogitate of yourself as a bit of an epinephrine junkie, it is plausibly finer to look specifically for indemnity policies that are intentional for these types of holidays.

Annual insurance

Contrary to popular belief, the price difference between a single trip policy and an annual trip policy can be very small. In fact, for some foreign holidays it works out cheaper to get an annual trip policy than a single trip policy.

Paul Birkhead, Halifax Travel Insurance’s underwriting manager, said: “The proliferation of low-cost, no frills airlines, has had a significant impact on our holiday-taking habits. More and more of us are taking short breaks to destinations in the UK, Europe and further-a-field, making annual travel insurance a more attractive proposition.

“The main benefit of annual cover is that you only need to take out your policy once a year to be insured for as many trips as you like, within a 12 month period, both within the UK and abroad. Many people are also unaware that annual cover will also include trips in the UK, so long as they are in pre-booked accommodation for at least three days.”

According to MoneyExpert.com, the cost of annual travel insurance for a family of four going to Europe is on average £113.86. So if a family goes away for more than three weeks a year it can be worth getting annual cover. And of course annual cover works for the whole family.

The cheapest annual travel insurance is however as little as £35 for a family of four so it can be cheaper to get annual travel insurance than it is to get single trip insurance.

However, it is the quality of cover is what counts - not just the price. You can save a few quid by buying the cheapest available but that can cost you in the long-run if it comes time to make a claim.

The cost of medical care is very expensive and varies in each country, for example, in Spain it would cost about £9,000 to treat a broken leg and an air ambulance in South Africa is £18,000.

But, you only find out if an insurance policy is good value for money when you make a claim - if it doesn't pay out when you need it then it's a waste of money.

Cut out the middle-man

Research undertaken by Alliance & Leicester has shown that UK holidaymakers pay 1.3bn more than they need to on travel insurance each year. This is despite the fact that travel insurance appears to be relatively cheap – normally around £25 for each week abroad.

About 60 per cent of holiday makers in the UK take the ‘easy’ option and use travel agents to attain insurance at the same time as booking a holiday. In fact, insurance sold through agencies helps them boost their profits and can be up to five times the cost of buying it separately. In some cases travel insurance is promoted as a ‘free’ add-on with the package – but the reality is that you will be paying for it somewhere along the line.

Over the past year, insurance companies have been taking advantage of the internet, making it much easier, and often a lot cheaper, for people to buy travel insurance online.

Research from online insurance specialist, swiftcover, shows that travel agent policies cost a small fortune. Two single trip policies of one week each will cost you a total of £199.92 with Thomas Cook, £172 with First Choice and £193.74 with Expedia.

Labels: Annual insurance, Single trip