Travel Insurance - Options

What are the options?
For the vast majority of individuals and families buying travel insurance, who are booking a packaged holiday, or travelling to a European Union country, the choice boils down to single trip or annual travel insurance. You may make further savings by buying a family policy. You will be looking for a fairly standard comprehensive policy which covers all of the potential problems that you make encounter as part of your holidays. For you the choice may come down to one of price, but do check that you will also be getting an acceptable level of cover.

If you are not travelling on a package holiday or fall into one of a number of special categories then you have to first find a company or companies that offer a policy that fits your needs. Price is important but comes after ensuring that your needs for insurance cover are accommodated. Business travellers, over 65s and people with pre-existing medical conditions have particular requirements.

If you plan to take part in risky activities or are taking an extended trip then there are policies specifically aimed at you. Skiing insurance, motorcycle tours and backbacking holidays all have special travel insurance policies aimed at them.

Single trip travel insurance

This is the most widely available form of travel insurance. You buy cover just for the period that you are away on your holiday. Cover for holiday cancellation may start prior to the main cover coming into force. If you plan to have more than 3 weeks on holiday abroad then it may be less expensive to buy Annual travel insurance.

Annual travel insurance

Here you buy insurance for the whole year to cover you for all of your trips. Make sure that the policy that you are buying covers you for all of the countries you plan to visit and for the activities that you plan to undertake. Also check what the requirements are for keeping them informed if you develop a condition during the period of the insurance. Some policies limit the length of time that you can be away on any one trip. What these policies are saying is that we want people who are going to take a few short holidays through the year rather than one or two very long holidays.

You can time the purchase of an annual travel policy so that it covers this years main holiday and next years as well as any other short breaks in between. Of course this is not to your advantage if you renew the policy but if you are comparing the costs of single trip versus annual then it could result in major savings. If you plan to be away on holiday for more than 3 weeks you should find that buying annual cover is less expensive.

Family travel insurance

Some companies offer annual or single trip policies in a family package. These can be particularly cost effective especially in some cases for large families. For example Esure's Family Travel Insurance "allows an unlimited number of children under the family cover rate".

More travel insurance guides and information on this site.

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Don't leave reading the small print until you need to make a claim. If you do it may be too late if you find that you have not complied with a specific requirement of the policy......................

Travel Insurance - Things to remember when you travel

Your European Health Insurance Card.
Your insurers name, claims number, and your policy number. If you take your policy documents leave a copy at home.
Make sure that you are covered for everything that you are going to do and places you are going to see.
Make sure that you understand any significant exclusions. For example you cover may be invalid if you were under the influence of drink or drugs when injured.
Make sure that you understand what documents you will need to support any claim that you have to make. For example ensure that you get proper receipted invoices with full contact details and descriptions of what they relate to on them. It is much easier to get these done properly at the time rather than trying to get them after the event when you are back in the UK.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office web site has “Country specific travel advice”. Follow this link and click on “Travel Advice”. http://www.fco.gov.uk/