Travel Insurance – When do you need it

When we book a customers holiday, we always ask them if they have travel insurance and everyone says yes or say they’ll sort it out later. We strongly advise that make sure you have cover BEFORE booking a holiday or take out a policy when you book it. Why?

We have had an instance where a customer booked a holiday at short notice, payment was in full and we asked if they had travel insurance cover. “Yes, it’s with the household insurance” they said confidently. We asked them to make sure and to check before booking but they were adamant it was ok.

A week later and we received a frantic call from the customer who said they couldn’t go on the holiday and needed to cancel it on health grounds. We called the holiday company and they agreed to a refund of 40% of the total, the customer was furious and aimed their anger towards us. We quoted the holiday operators T&C’s and confidently told them to contact their insurance company. The silence told us all we needed to know, they weren’t covered, in fact their insurance cover didn’t extend to anything outside of the home.

This issue dragged on for some time and we have done all we can to implore the operator to give a full refund. In a calmer moment, the customer conceded that we weren’t at fault and they should have checked before booking, but it was too little too late and the result cost them £000’s.

Travel insurance starts the moment you book your holiday, if you leave the travel agency and something happens to you, you are covered by the law and by consumer rights. Many people leave it to the last moment and then discover the premiums are at a sky high level compared to if they booked at the time of booking.

Another customer fell ill whilst away, had taken out insurance but the cover didn’t extend to the country they were in. Many insurance companies cover most countries but you need to read the small print as some countries are excluded and this changes on a monthly basis.

Travel insurance doesn’t need to be expensive but it does need to be comprehensive and that’s where we use an experience insurance broker and only recommend insurance companies that we’ve used and/or are using ourselves.