Holiday Insurance for the DIY traveler

Smith23481

Hi i've searched and searched the web and forum but cant find any insurer that will cover worldwide annual travel insurance inc ski for the DIY traveler. can anyone recommend one? i was with flexcover but after going to make a simple claim for a medical missed departure i may as well never have taken there insurance. total pointless they looked for everyway not to pay out!

ferf1223

I'm not sure I understand the question - all insurers I've ever looked at would provide this sort of cover? We've only ever done DIY (though we always decline the winter sports cover - it's always an option).

jenny-wren

We nearly always travel DIY style and usually go for a comprehensive annual policy. We've always found Boots Travel Insurance to offer the best value for money and they have three levels of annual cover you can choose from. They cover loads of activities that you might be brave enough to try on your travels!

I've always found them very easy to deal with on the phone and wouldn't hesitate to use them again.

davidlizard

You do need to be wary of a few things that can go wrong if you arrange your own holidays, where flight and hotel are booked separately, and "normal" holiday insurance fails to provide cover - and therefore take insurance suitable for independent travel.

A typical example, the airline goes bust (OK you get your money back eventually if you have put it on credit card), but what you will not get back is the indirect losses, e.g. cost of any hotel accomodation, hire cars and excursions you have also paid for. If one does a package holiday, then the travel agent/ATOL have obligations to sort it out. Another example is the FCO prohibit travel somewhere - again you might get flights refunded but not necessarily expenses such as accomodation.

I know AXA used to offer travel insurance targetted at independent travellers, but were a bit expensive when I looked so underwrote the risks myself.

Smith23481

Sorry i never made myself clear. my problem is like the one Davidlizard explains. most insurance companies will only cover one thing going wrong and not the knock on affect it has. my main worry is i do two flights some times to get to my destination a cheap flight to Madrid then use Madrid to hope to lanzarote for a fraction of the cost.

richardw

Smith23481 wrote: »

my main worry is i do two flights some times to get to my destination a cheap flight to Madrid then use Madrid to hope to lanzarote for a fraction of the cost.

Can be costly if you haven't bought a through ticket and miss your flight or the flight is cancelled. Also the insurance excess for this kind of risk can be high £250 on some policies, so in some instances you are really risking it and aren't really insured.

dacouch

You might find some of the policies that are specically designed for cruises might cover it as some cover missing connecting or internal flights.


Obviously check the policy wording very carefully

getmore4less

dacouch wrote: »

You might find some of the policies that are specically designed for cruises might cover it as some cover missing connecting or internal flights.

Obviously check the policy wording very carefully

Certainly most regular policies that give cruise cover will not cover a DIY booking of flights and cruise if one part goes wrong.

I think with the DIY travel you have to build in a bit of self insurance to the plans, always give yourself options,
For the cruise we try to make sure there are alternative flight options by traveling a bit earlier, for a land based trip it is less important you just lose a bit of time/money if you arrive a bit later.
In the cruise case if the cruiseline goes down the CC will cover that and we just use the flights to go on different holiday.

The main reason we have the insurance is the costs we cannot afford so good medical cover, I can take the hit on any of the costs allready paid or loss of bags etc. inconvenient but not going to break the bank, a medical claim could.

davidlizard

I used insurefor.com last year, getting a big discount going via money supermarket.

I have received an email from them stating my cover is about to expire, and this states that their policies now include scheduled airline failure cover and more interestingly, "cover for DIY holidays". However, when I go to their website, all I see is something about "supplier failure" - but a scan in the policy wording does not have anything that jumps out as specific for DIY holidays.

As others say, I look to reduce many risks myself - building in plenty of time to allow for flight delays and having a plan B to follow if for example, there is a three day strike, using airlines that offer plenty of alternative flights or have capacity to do so.