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Travel Insurance

How to save money on travel insurance

How can I save money when purchasing travel insurance? This is a commonly asked question among international travellers. Keep reading to learn how you can find an insurance plan that meets all your travel needs without taking more money out of your vacation fund than necessary.

1. Don’t insure refundable trip costs

When paying for your travel insurance policy, only cover the trip costs that are non-refundable and pre-paid. Refundable costs are not only unnecessary, but they also raise the price of your premium, making your policy more expensive.

For example, if your flight gets cancelled and the airline offers you a voucher for the cost of the flight, you can easily take it, eliminating the need for flight cancellation.

2. Avoid over-insuring emergency evacuations

Most insurers offer millions worth of coverage for medical evacuations, which is too much. On average, you’re more likely to spend no more than a couple of hundred thousand, and this is for extreme cases. So, don’t over-insure emergency evacuations, as it only raises your travel insurance costs.

However, don’t forgo it altogether either, as evacuations are too expensive to cover out-of-pocket.

3. Take an annual policy

If you travel multiple times in a year, consider purchasing an annual travel insurance policy, as it can save you a lot of money and time over covering individual trips with separate plans. Furthermore, annual policies are convenient, as you get one plan with the same coverage and assistance all year long.

4. Only buy add-ons when you really need them

Add-ons, such as Cancel for Any Reason, rental car coverage and pre-existing conditions, make your travel insurance more expensive than it should be. Therefore, you should carefully consider what add-ons you want to get and why before including them in your policy. For instance, if you’re sure you won’t rent a vehicle when travelling abroad, there’s no need to buy rental car coverage.

Try spending a little more time with your policy, reading the fine print, and understanding what’s covered or not. You can also compare policies from different providers to determine whether they cover what you need at no extra cost.

To aid the process, use our tools and resources at Compare Insurance to find your cheap schengen travel insurance plan.

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Travel Insurance

What are the risks of travelling without travel insurance?

Insurance has become one of the most important parts of being able to travel. From illness to lost luggage, there are plenty of reasons for you to make sure that your trip is financially covered. Read on to see just a few reasons you need the best annual travel insurance, and what you can risk without having it.

In case of illness

If you get ill abroad, you could be in big trouble. In countries such as the United States, where medical bills can weigh down on you heavily, being covered can stop your trip from being a very short journey to bankruptcy. The same applies to any countries with significant medical costs since nationalised healthcare always tends to be in place for citizens, leaving tourists out in the cold. By getting comprehensive travel insurance, you can keep everyone in your travelling party as happy and healthy as can be throughout your trip, so you can focus on the holiday itself rather than having to budget for injuries.

Lost or damaged luggage

Travel insurance does much more than just looking after your physical condition, and can be a versatile tool to cover you in all sorts of financially precarious situations. For example, if your luggage goes missing at the end of your flight, hundreds of pounds worth of valuables and clothes could go missing along with it, and that can be hard to cover whilst also paying for a holiday. With travel insurance, the financial burden of lost luggage is much lower, and you won’t have to worry in the long run.

Delayed flights

If your flight is late and you can’t make it to your final destination, you might have your entire holiday ruined. After all, your travel could be put back an entire day and you might miss out on some stunning experiences. Effective cover can make sure that you are well prepared for any eventuality, including offering Flight Delay Assistance to get you into airport lounges to make up for your disappointing delays.

If you’re interested in family holiday insurance to reduce the risk of disappointment this summer, take a look at Compare Insurance today to see a range of great insurance options.

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Travel Insurance

Three things that may be increasing the cost of your travel insurance

Despite the benefits of travel insurance, such as cover for medical emergencies, some people don’t invest in it due to its cost. Travelling without cover could end up costing you far more than the price of cruise insurance, should something go wrong. Regardless, here are three things that may be increasing the cost of your travel insurance and what you can do about it:

Unnecessary benefits

In general, the more benefits a travel insurance policy offers, the more it will cost. Factors such as the value of lost goods covered and the amount of cover for medical expenses will impact how expensive a policy is. Obviously, you should ensure the policy you take out offers you the cover you need. However, if you don’t need the highest level of cover, don’t pay extra for it. For example, if the policy offers to cover stolen goods up to a value far higher than the value of your belongings, you could save money by reducing the value the policy covers.

Paying per trip rather than annually

If you travel more than twice a year, you could probably save money by choosing an annual travel insurance plan. These plans cover you for an entire year, regardless of how many trips you take during that time. As well as being more cost-effective, annual plans are a good option for people who frequently travel on short notice and so don’t have much time to organise insurance before leaving.

Pre-existing medical conditions

As travel insurance is partially intended to help you pay for medical emergencies while away, factors such as pre-existing medical conditions can increase the cost of your policy. This is because some medical conditions make it more likely that you will become unwell and need to make a claim. However, this does not mean it is impossible to get travel insurance if you have a pre-existing condition. Using a comparison website, such as ours, is a quick and easy way to see the options available to you.

To check how much you could save on your flight insurance, use our website to compare the policies available and find the best option for you.

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Travel Insurance

Why adding activity cover to your travel insurance policy makes sense

When it comes to annual travel insurance, it can be tailored to cover many additional things such as extra cover for skiing trips or for going on a cruise for example. However, what about those activities that are more extreme, can they be covered too? Extreme sports and other riskier activities are becoming more popular than ever before, such as parasailing or bungee jumping, and for these types of activities you will need to get an activity pack added to your policy. These types of add-ons are ideal if you need to cover dangerous or hazardous activities that you may want to take part in whilst on vacation.

What type of activities can be covered?

Almost all dangerous or potentially hazardous activities can be covered by the addition of extra insurance cover. Activities such as abseiling, adventure racing, hot-air ballooning, climbing, hiking, dog sledding, hang gliding, caving, sailing, mountain biking and parachuting are just some that can be covered but there are hundreds more.

Make sure you get the right coverage

Although these activity packs are a useful addition to your travel insurance policy, not every insurance policy has them, so you should check the wording on your chosen policy before you sign up for it. In addition to which, some travel insurance policies have different packs for different activities, so you will need to double check everything is in order before you sign.

Make sure you’re honest with regards to medical conditions

Due to some medical conditions preventing you from being able to take part in certain high-risk activities, you may also find they will preclude you from adding the extra insurance cover to your policy. So, if you were to go ahead and take part in a dangerous activity in spite of your medical condition, and something went wrong, then you may not have enough insurance to cover your medical bills.

The bottom line

Dangerous sports and other hazardous activities can make for a great vacation, but it is doubly important you have the right level of travel insurance before you leave home, otherwise you could find that your holiday of a lifetime becomes the stuff of nightmares.

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Travel Insurance

5 ways to get cheaper travel insurance

After spending your hard-earned wages on a lovely holiday, it is understandable that you want to get the best deal on the best travel insurance.

Just by making sure that you are insured for your trip may save you money. Unforeseen cancellations, costly medical bills and losing your luggage – each of these things could cost you dearly if you are uninsured.

Here are 5 other quick tips on saving money.

Compare the market

Don’t just go with the travel insurance offered by your chosen travel agent. Make sure that you have thoroughly researched the market for the best deal. The easiest way to do this is with an online insurance comparison site, such as Compare Insurance.

Only pay for what you need

Insurance policy documents are often lengthy and can be tricky to read. However, take the time to go through the document carefully and make sure that you are not paying for something that you don’t need. Removing extras like winter sports add-ons, for example, can help reduce your premium.

Increase the excess

This option has pros and cons. Paying an ‘excess’ refers to the amount of money you will have to pay towards any claim that you make on your travel insurance. The amount varies, and the more money that you are prepared to pay towards your claim, usually the lower your overall travel insurance premium.

Think carefully though before you go for this option. If you do need to claim on your travel insurance, have you got the money readily available?

Is this your only trip?

Although an annual travel insurance package works out more expensive than a single trip premium, it could work out cheaper if you are planning any other trips in the coming 12 months. Paying for several single cover travel insurance premiums will work out more expensive in the long run.

Avoid countries with expensive healthcare

The United States, Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean all have expensive healthcare. This will be reflected in the high cost of your premium. If you really want to keep the cost of your travel insurance low, avoid these destinations.

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