Travel Insurance Discussion Area

ihmoody

I'm hoping to go to greece for 2 weeks with my dad who uses a wheelchair (he can walk for a few meters, then gets tired - too many fags in his early years!)) and is 79.y.o. I'm 39. any suggestions for travel insurance.

greenkingster

My husband and I have an annual worldwide travel insurance with our Smilemore Bank account. I also have membership of the Austrian Alpine Club which includes rescue and repatriation almost anywhere. Up to now the Smilemore (Norwich Union) insurance covered me for skiing, but now that I'm 65, it will no longer. Do you reckon I should risk skiing in Europe with the AAC rescue package and the reciprocal European Health cover. Is there a Third Party insurance cover package I could purchase?

SaverSarah_2

Really helpful article but there's one thing I'm not sure about – next year I'm going on a long-haul trip with my OH for my sister's wedding. Then because we're leaving the kids behind, we're taking them to Disneyland Paris earlier in the year.

So... should I buy an annual policy for us and a single trip for the kids? Or would a family annual policy be the best bet?



Any advice gratefully accepted!

HLK

Hi - for the last 3 years we have just renewed our annual worldwide family insurance with insureandgo, they were cheap enough. However I thought I would look for a few reviews before I went the same route this year and was shocked to find nothing but horror stories in respect of claims. I've been though this whole thread now , and cheapness does seem to be the single biggest factor that people are interested in (it is MSE after all) .. however if a company does not pay out on valid claims then that is not cheap .. it's a rip-off. What I would like to see is some positive experiences of claims both large and small reported so that I can make an informed choice holiday with peace of mind knowing I have the cover I paid for.

Now should I start another thread ?

alaska30

hi, i am trying to book travel ins. through travelsupermarket but when it comes to paying for it the two companies i tried dont take visa electron. Anyone know which ones do?
thanx

mrsa81

I found a travel insurance company called Marcus Hearn & Company Limited, who are covering my wife and myself annual insurance worldwide for about £46. Martin has recommended Insurefor.com, which is about £60. I have checked both policies but didn't find any major difference. Does anyone know of any reasons why Marcus Hearn & Company Limited does not appear under Martin's recommendations.

DEC_2

mrsa81 wrote:

I found a travel insurance company called Marcus Hearn & Company Limited, who are covering my wife and myself annual insurance worldwide for about £46. Martin has recommended Insurefor.com, which is about £60. I have checked both policies but didn't find any major difference. Does anyone know of any reasons why Marcus Hearn & Company Limited does not appear under Martin's recommendations.

My wife and I are in an identical situation ... the policy looks quite good, particularly given the low premium. Its also the best priced policy which includes luggage cover. Anyone have any experience with Marcus Hearn & Co?

Tatty1_2

I am 64 and my wife is 60. We ski and travel world wide. We are currently with Nationwide annual travel insurance who are quoting £138 to renew. I checked out best quotes with MoneySupermarket. Quotes ranged from £65 up to £252 (17 days winter sports). The cover is similarish. How do I evaluate the reliability of the cheaper companies? I note BGI (#7 above) commented in April on claim problems on a cheaper policy. Insurance is useless if they will not pay out!

hss

My mother who is 84yr had a respiratory problem earlier this year, and we as a family had booked to travel for a week to Majorca. Having gone through the minefield on this site, contacted Totaltravel but they said they only go up to 75, freespirit go upto 79, Freedom insurance quoted me £75.60 plus a £50 XS, AllClear/Medi travel quoted £294.51, plus other quotes ranging from £103.60 with a medical XS of £100 or a supplement of an extra £88.48p Makesure travel insurance a whopping £431.60p /Medicover imposed high excesses as well. It was either a medical xs premium you paid on top of the normal premium, or a high excess if you had a claim. I then asked Saga for a quote. Bearing in mind I assumed they only cover over 50's, apparently if the main policy holder is, it will cover the rest of the family. Well my 'children' are 20/24yrs and plus my husband, they quoted me £172.60 (for 5 adults) and it also included a £10 per person excess waiver. They also suggested if I got a quote (no obligation) for motor insurance, they would knock £15 off, so I did and they did, reducing the price to £157.60p, an excellent price which gave cover for all eventualities.

Hope this is useful.

From Heather - from Loughton, Essex

SampleX

Heeelp.

I don't know what to do next.

When is a return journey travel insurance not a return journey travel insurance, and only a one way journey travel insurance? When it's sold by InsureandGo..!

I've been using Insure and Go happily for a few years. I often go on short European breaks with my parents, who get free travel insurance with their Barclays Bank account (may have a Credit Card attatched), and I always used to laugh at them relying on it, while I paid for a silver policy from InsureAndGo. My point was proven during a trip this time last year, when the airline sent our bags to Glasgow, while we flew to Paris, and then got a train to Nice. We all rang travel insurance as soon as we got to Nice, they were told they had £100 emergency clothing/supplies allowance each, and Insure and Go told me I had £200. Great. The extra cost had paid off. So I continued to use IAG for all my trips, even to the point of NEARLY convincing my folks to use IAG for a recent trip.

Thank God they didn't.

On the return journey home, we had a train booked (TGV) to get to Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, which was delayed critically due to an engine failuire (very rare in my experience). SNCF were brilliant, and because it was an 80 minute delay, they had letters already prepared for us at Paris explaining the delay for travel insurance suppliers. We missed our flights and had to pay £150 each to come home.

When we got home we put our claims in respectively.

We each requested that our documents be returned to us for our records also, and included SAE's, fully postage paid. Doing this on my last claim got me my documents back before my successful payout completed.

Within seven days my folks had received their documents back in the envelopes, and had received full payout cheques for the £150 per person or euro equivalent. I started to worry, because mine was taking longer.

First I received a letter to say 'we're busy with claims and we'll get back to you.'

Then, today, my heart sank as I opened the letter that told me that the small print in the policy wording states that the missed travel/delay compensation covers ONLY outbound legs of your journey.

In other words, as far as travel delay and missed departure are concerned, only half my journey is covered. By my calculation this means that in this respect, my one weeks journey that I paid travel insurance cover for was actually applicable for only seven hours between midnight on the day of departure, and the 7 am flight successfully taking off.

I'm at a complete loss. I can't deny that it's in their tiny print, the bit that trusting customers who read the front pages of their website don't delve through to make sure that the 'uk's number 1 online travel insurer' isn't ripping them off.

But it is found NOWHERE in their preliminary 'this is what compensation you'll be covered for with us' blurb that gets you signing up on your credit card on their website, before you actually really become aware of being sent to download a 'policy wording' booklet for your reference, and your insurance certificate.

So the freebie insurance with a crap bank account paid out successfully. InsureAndGo, premium travel insurance at a good price, took a weasel-way out of paying up.

I don't even know if I have any redress for this.

Any advice for me?

And my advice for everyone else is 'boycott Insure And Go, the 'half trip travel insurance specialists.'