If you’re spending hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds on a great holiday, the extra cost of travel insurance might seem like an extra burden, and one that you could do without. In fact, you might be one of the people who believe that it’s both expensive, and unnecessary – you would, then, be wrong on both counts.
Insurance is one of the UK’s most competitive financial markets at the moment, which means that it’s cheaper than ever, big banks are competing with small insurers for the market, driving down prices across the board.
This should mean that we’re more likely to get insurance when we go on holiday, but research by travel organisation ABTA has suggested that this is actually far from the case. Of the 2,018 people that they surveyed an astonishing 20% of all those surveyed decide to go on holiday without travel insurance.
Remarkably, a similar number of people, particularly young travelers, thought that the Foreign Office would be obliged to pay for health costs should something go wrong. For those in any doubt, the Foreign Office will absolutely not pay for anything should you get in trouble, and all the costs will fall squarely on you.
17% of people asked thought that travel insurance was unnecessary when traveling in the EU. The problem is the European Health Insurance Card which is free and many people provides the same cover as travel insurance. In fact, the EHIC actually only covers basic medical care within the EU, and will not cover the costs of complicated surgery or repatriation should something go extremely wrong.
In addition to the obvious costs of health cover, travel insurance also covers the cancellation of holidays, and the loss of your baggage (which can run into thousands of pounds). In the current financial climate with some holiday companies struggling (and customers often being unaware of the fact until it’s too late) buying travel insurance at the time of buying a holiday is the only way to guarantee protection.
Travel insurance does not have to be expensive, particularly if you’re willing to do a little legwork, and as the cost of medical care abroad, or of a cancelled holiday, or of lost baggage, can run into the thousands, the only way of guaranteeing that your dream holiday doesn’t become a complete nightmare is to make sure that you have good travel insurance.
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