Travel insurance is necessary for your vacation packages and without it all your travel dreams cannot come true. Travel insurance is essential for a traveler as it covers your medical and financial expenses and losses incurred on your domestic or international travel. It’s usually arranged at the time of booking the trip and covers the exact duration of the trip.

Many travel agents offer insurance, as part of their travel packages but it will be worth for you if you arrange it on your own through an online source. You can search for a good insurance policy and choose between single and multi trip insurances. If you plan to travel once in a year, then travel insurance of single trip policy will be suitable. But if you have plans to travel frequently then you can consider taking multi trip insurance policy. Continuous insurance can be bought from travel agents, travel suppliers like tour operators, cruise lines and companies offering travel insurance.

A multi trip insurance policy is commonly referred as annual insurance travel policy and can save big money in the long run. While arranging for insurance policies for travel, be clear with what the insurance coverage is provided along with the inclusions and exclusions. Always remember to look at other things also if you look for a compromise between your travel insurance coverage and the premium to be paid. Never assume that a policy with cheap premium will not offer good insurance coverage. This may work in reverse also. A policy taken at a higher price need not cover all aspects of insurance coverage required by you.

As a traveler you face lot of problems and risks while traveling like loss of property and money, trip cancellation, natural calamities, accidents, occasionally death and terrorist attacks. You cannot prevent these risks or stop your travel plan but you can reduce the risk involved by taking travel insurance policies.

The concept of travel insurance is very simple. You pay a travel insurance premium to the company and they in turn covers for your loss of valuables, accidents and unforeseen things.

The premium you pay for travel insurance covers risks faced on travel like:

There are lots of possibilities for trip cancellation due to unavoidable circumstances and last minute cancellation will fetch you very less amount as refund. Your travel insurance covers such losses and provides the cancellation cost but the reason for cancellation must be part of the agreement you have signed with the company.

If you lose your baggage then the insurance company pays for the baggage cost but again based on the rules of your insurance contract. A travel insurance policy sometimes covers your medical expenses if incurred while traveling. But if you have got health insurance separately then you don’t have to spend again for health insurance during travel.

Generally travel insurance covers other things like accidental death, medical evacuation etc.

An important golden rule of all insurance policies is to go through the agreement carefully because most of the time you apply for insurance policies during emergencies.

Travel insurance is offered with various options for different types of travelers like student, business, adventure, international and leisure travelers. Travel insurance is also offered for participating in sports involving high risk and traveling to certain countries which have a high risk.

 

I’m looking for good cheap travel insurance. I have a week before I leave for my holiday and I need to get a policy quick! I’m going to write about my experience trying to find a policy that will cover 2 adults for a 36 day trip. It’s a long holiday I know! If you ever have to look for insurance I hope that you can refer to this article and learn from my experience.

For every trip that I take I spend quite a bit of time organizing. I usually do a bit of pre-holiday shopping, get a haircut so I will look good on the beach and make a list of the items I need to pack. Before I start packing I get my travel insurance!

I am going overseas for an extended period of time and I’m hunting for comprehensive travel insurance package to keep me covered for any nasty eventualities on my trip. I like to start the process by writing down a few of the problems I am most worried about on my travel. This can vary on the type of trip that you are doing and the destination that you are going on.

If I was taking a ski holiday I might priorities cover for personal injury or damage to my ski equipment. This trip isn’t an action filled holiday, I might do a bit of snorkeling but my main concerns are:

1- Making sure I get to my destinations and home again in one piece (with all my luggage).

 

2- Cover for health/accident related problems that might occur.

 

3 -Having cover for any theft, loss or damage to my possessions while I’m away. Travelling for a month

 

means that I have a lot of luggage. I don’t want to worry about my precious laptop and camera!

Now that I have a few priorities I’m going to start my search.

Internet comparison websites really do make life a lot easier. I’ve carried out a couple of searches on Confused.com and MoneySuperMarket.com. The lowest prices for a travelling couple on a holiday longer than 30 days is about £40 pounds up to a maximum of £230 pounds for luxury travel insurance! I’m not going to consider the policies as I can see that the luggage cover values are too low.

Later I’ll need to check out the maximum single item cover limit for baggage as expensive single items such as laptops and camera might fall outside of some of these policies.

I’ve decided to use quotes from Confused.com only as I am pushed for time and they offer the largest comparison of insurers at the moment. If I had more time I would look at hitting up MoneySupermarket and others comparison sites as then I could get a larger comparison.

So here are my chosen runners -

TRAVEL INSURER Premium Medical Cancellation Baggage Excess

 

Travel Insurance Genie £57.20 £10 Mill £2K £1.5K £65

 

Travel Plan Online £57.50 £10 Mill £5K £1K £100

 

Swift Cover £62.19 £10 Mill £2K £2K £75

 

Direct Travel Insurance £72 £10 Mill £3K £1.5K £50

There is a £15 difference between the most expensive and least expensive policies. Looking at them closely it is going to be interesting to see what I can get for my money’s worth.

MEDICAL COVER

Medical cover for all the policies is pretty similar at £10 million. You might think that this is a lot of money but you have to keep in mind that it can be expensive paying for doctors and hospitals when abroad. Just as you don’t get to go to the Grand Canyon for free the US aren’t going to pay for your stay at the local hospital. Breaking your leg in other part so the Continent can be very expensive especially if you have to abandon your holiday and pay for alternative transport home.

CANCELLATIONS

UK weather has been pretty temperamental recently. I am not counting on a nice day for my departure so I’m keeping one eye on the forecast in case I have to set out a few hours early to make it to the airport. I haven’t noticed too many news items about flight cancellations but another bout of snow and ice could make trains and buses a trial. To be sure I want a decent amount of cover for cancellations.

Travel Plan Online has the largest provision for cancellations of the four with £5000. The first leg of our trip London to LA and I don’t think that a replacement flight would cost more that £2000. If you are planning on travelling business or first class you would need to have a higher cover amount for cancellations. For my purposes £2000 is just fine as my flights for the whole trip didn’t cost that much!

So looking at the competition so far the policies are level pegging, price aside.

BAGGAGE

It is difficult making a figure for the value of your suitcase contents…especially when I haven’t packed yet! Having written a list of what I will pack I think that if I lost all of my clothes, toiletries, camera, laptop and other gadgets I would be looking at over a £1000 to replace everything. The policies under investigation cover between £1000 and £2000 for baggage. So at the baggage hurdle Travel Plan Online has tripped up and fallen out of the race!

As Travel Plan Online didn’t provide a high enough value on baggage I am casting them aside. Interestingly enough Travel Plan Online had the highest excess £25 -£50 more than their competitors. If a customer have to make a claim for contents over £1000 the maximum pay out would amount to only £900!

Something to keep in mind for later is whether the survivors provide cover as new for old or 2nd hand value.

EXCESS

So the competition is down 3 insurers now with excesses ranging between £50 and £75. At this early stage I’m not swayed towards any one company so I’ll consider excess later in the piece if the running is close between contenders.

JUDGEMENT SO FAR

Here is my competition table after looking at the basic offers from comparison tables.

TRAVEL INSURER Premium Medical Cancellation Baggage Excess

 

Travel Insurance Genie £57.20 £10 Mill £2K £1.5K £65

 

Swift Cover £62.19 £10 Mill £2K £2K £75

 

Direct Travel Insurance £72 £10 Mill £3K £1.5K £50

I’ve considered price and checked if my basic requirements for travel insurance would be covered.

 

Travel Plan Online has been crossed out of the competition as in hindsight they would not be able to cover the whole value of my baggage.

If I had to pick a winner at this point it would be Travel Insurance Genie. Based on the bare facts their price is good, they offer a decent amount of medical cover, pretty good cancellation and baggage cover amounts too with a competitive excess at £65.

Next I want to do some research into the service and history of these companies and see if I can dig up any dirt on their performance! Stay tuned for more on my adventures shopping for travel insurance.

 

Travel insurance: It protects you when you need protecting the most. It gives you financial security in a land that is not your own, when you are facing circumstances that are beyond your control. It can replace your personal belongings; it can give you shelter and even pay for medical emergencies. It is a vital companion for any traveller. It comes in many forms and has many prices. If you have need of it, you don’t want to pay more for it than you absolutely have to. And so, your quest for cheap travel insurance begins.

When you book a trip with a travel agent, you will be offered travel insurance. This might be the most convenient way to purchase travel insurance, but it is not always the cheapest. In order to find cheap travel insurance, you will need to do a little bit of legwork yourself.

One of the best tools that you can use to find cheap travel insurance is the internet. You can purchase individual policies from insurance providers without having to go through a travel agent. But you will need to contact the insurance company directly. You can do this by using the internet to find the travel insurance providers in your area. Or you can visit websites and obtain quotes all from the comfort of your own home. Many cheap travel insurance companies will also allow you to buy your policy online.

You may also want to shop for cheap travel insurance at your current insurance agency. Many companies give discounts to their customers who purchase multiple policies through them. Always check with your current insurance agent to see what types of deals that you can get.

Business directories are another great tool that you can use to shop for cheap travel insurance. However, this method takes more time as you will need to call each listing to ask for quotes.

If you have friends and family who travel frequently, you may want to ask them where they purchase their travel insurance. Referrals are a great way to get a feel of what to expect from a company. This is especially true if your references have had to file a travel insurance claim in the past.

When you’re shopping for cheap travel insurance, always remember to review each policy thoroughly. There could be fine print and red tape that you will not be aware of until it’s too late. Remember; a great price is not always a great deal. You need to shop for the policy with the best coverage at the lowest possible price. Never skimp on coverage.

If you plan to shop for cheap travel insurance on your own, you will need to begin comparing policies in advance of your trip. You should start comparing policies and getting quotes well before you plan to travel. This will give you plenty of time to find the right policy and make your purchase.