Travel Insurance News

Travel Insurance Is It Necessary For A UK-Based Holiday?

Just over a month ago, my boyfriend and I decided to visit the beautiful city of Edinburgh for our 5 year anniversary. We live in Dorset, so we didnt want to spend the whole time travelling. To make the trip easier on ourselves, we decided to fly there, and used a travel agent to organise the week long holiday. Imagine my surprise when I saw an additional 27.50 on the quote for travel insurance! We were only going to Edinburgh, not Pittsburgh!

I was offended that they thought we would be so stupid as to get travel insurance for a trip within the UK. They have hospitals in Edinburgh, and it really isnt very far away. But later on, over a cup of hot chocolate, I put some more thought into it.

Holiday disasters can happen anywhere, not just abroad – so I made a list of what could feasibly go wrong:

One of us could fall ill before we depart, wed have no choice but to cancel the trip. The flights and the hotel were non-refundable, so wed have to pay anyway.

My Grandfather has been ill lately, if he got suddenly worse then I wouldnt be able to go on holiday. Again, the trip would have to be cancelled.

Either of us could be called up for jury service at any time.

Flights are delayed and cancelled all the time. On top of the inconvenience, we may need to arrange an overnight stay near the airport.

Anything could happen to our luggage, airlines lose suitcases all the time.

My boyfriend bought me a wonderful digital camera as a present, if I lost it, it would be very expensive to replace.

Hang on a minute, what about our Home & Contents insurance policy? I bet that would cover us for loss of luggage or my camera as long as I was in the UK. I found the policy and read the small print. No such luck, only personal possessions that were listed on the policy counted, so everything in the luggage wouldnt be covered, and Id need to make a phone call to get the camera included on the policy.

I remembered something else we had over 4 years of no claims discount on our Home & Contents policy. If we had to make a claim, wed lose the no claims discount. Our premiums would go sky high after that, they were already high enough as it is, at 305 a year. I realised that I really should look for a cheaper Home & Contents policy at the time of renewal, and promised myself to do that in future.

After the investigations I had made so far, I realised that 27.50 for a travel policy wasnt actually too bad.

Ive never been one to rest on my laurels though. I might have decided that travel insurance was a good idea, but it didnt mean I was willing to accept the price quoted by the travel agent.

I went online to get some more quotes. The first two or three sites I looked at couldnt give me what I wanted, but 10 minutes later, I struck gold. I found a single trip travel policy for the UK, and it was a good 10 cheaper than the travel agents quote.

I read the small print, no point signing up without knowing all the facts. I was pleased to see all the points I had listed were covered.

Now the exclusions was it all too good to be true after all? Phew no need to worry. If the holiday was less than 25 miles from our home address, or for less than 2 nights, then we wouldnt be covered. No problem there. Otherwise the only downside was that wed have to pay the 30 if we needed to make a claim. Fair enough.

Happy with the policy Id found and with the decision that we did need travel insurance after all, I bought the travel insurance policy there and then.