Why I never bother with travel insurance

lynzpower

Yoghurt wrote: »

What, they even paid for your partner, even though he himself wasn't injured? What company was that?

Yes, as I needed someone with me to get me home. Plus we were on a couples policy. This was with Neillson.

delwynshd

LOL

Insurance is a must when travelling abroad as the other users state, what happens if you were seriously ill and needed to be brought back to the UK by air ambulance????

How on earth could you afford it

Del

Yoghurt_3

lynzpower wrote: »

Yes, as I needed someone with me to get me home. Plus we were on a couples policy. This was with Neillson.

Ok so if I were to get travel insurance and let's say my wife had an accident for example and needed to stay longer in Brunei than expected, needed a new flight etc etc, would the insurance company pay also for me and our child? What about accomodation, would they give us that too? Because it doesn't explicitly say in the policies - that's why I'm so sceptical.

lynzpower

Yoghurt wrote: »

Ok so if I were to get travel insurance and let's say my wife had an accident for example and needed to stay longer in Brunei than expected, needed a new flight etc etc, would the insurance company pay also for me and our child? What about accomodation, would they give us that too? Because it doesn't explicitly say in the policies - that's why I'm so sceptical.

I truly dont know but I would expect so to be honest on a family policy.

We only had to wait till later in the day for another flight to be made available so the ambulance collected us from the hotel ( a 3 hour transfer) and delivered us onto the plane.

lucylucky

Yoghurt wrote: »

Ok so if I were to get travel insurance and let's say my wife had an accident for example and needed to stay longer in Brunei than expected, needed a new flight etc etc, would the insurance company pay also for me and our child? What about accomodation, would they give us that too? Because it doesn't explicitly say in the policies - that's why I'm so sceptical.

Read the T&C of any policy before you take it out.

That way you will know what is covered.

(It does say what is covered and what is not in my policy)

lynzpower

lucylucky wrote: »

Read the T&C of any policy before you take it out.

That way you will know what is covered.

(It does say what is covered and what is not in my policy)

Yes, and you can change your policy depending where you are going.

If you are only going away for a weekend with one set of clothes then you might decide youll never claim for lost baggage. however if you are going away to ski and have hundreds of quids worth of clothing, it is worth covering.

Likewise on some policies they have cover for "dangerous" sports ( including hiking, waterski and so forth) whereas some wont cover that as standard.

I heard a terrible story once about someone who wasnt covered adn fell off an elephant and got brain damage in thailand or somewhere. Never ever would I do without insurance, even if i was just going away for a couple of days in Europe.

ferf1223

Yoghurt wrote:

Baggage: £75 excess. What, per bag? Ts & Cs don't say. So what's the betting they'll try and charge it per bag.

My policy states the excess is per insured...there are 2 people insured on our policy 'names of insured...' so I would assume the excess is per person, not per bag.

Yoghurt wrote:

Scheduled Airline Failure: To be fair, if the airline fails I'll be dead anyway.

If the airplane failes you may be dead anyway (depending on the detail of the failure)...I doubt if the airline fails you will be.

Yoghurt wrote:

Supplier Insolvency: I'm not going with a travel agent or package holiday so that doesn't apply.

Supplier doesn't necessarily = travel agent or package company, does it?

Yoghurt wrote:

Missed Departure: What, because I'm running late or only if the car breaks down? And if it breaks down due to running out of petrol, is that covered too? Watch them wriggle out of that one.

Why would travel insurance cover you for anything of your own doing? If you're running late/run out of petrol...that's your fault...they wouldn't have to 'wiggle out' of it...no reasonable person would expect insurance to cover something like this. My policy explicitly states what's covered - breakdown/accident (with police or roadside assitance report) and public transport delay (with documentation).

Yoghurt wrote:

Holiday Abandonment: !!!!!!?

My policy explains what is covered...and in my policy, strike/industrial action/etc is included (amongst other things). assuming it hadn't been announced prior to the policy being taken out, and if delay is longer than 24 hours, I can cancel and claim under cancellation

It doesn't seem that you've read any policy wording - just the headline sections...and you don't necessarily understand what they mean.

lucylucky

Yoghurt wrote: »

Yeah but in fairness, most of it's a joke:

Cancellation or Curtailment: What this means is cancellation or curtailment only under a strict set of circumstances. Which will be laid out in the T&C

Baggage: £75 excess. What, per bag? Ts & Cs don't say. So what's the betting they'll try and charge it per bag. You can pay a premuim to have no excess. PO have a policy where the excess is £45

Scheduled Airline Failure: To be fair, if the airline fails I'll be dead anyway. Not if the airline goes bust and you are in your hotel

Supplier Insolvency: I'm not going with a travel agent or package holiday so that doesn't apply. What if the company supplying your flight goes bust?

Missed Departure: What, because I'm running late or only if the car breaks down? And if it breaks down due to running out of petrol, is that covered too? Watch them wriggle out of that one. Someone posted on here recently about how they were covered for being held up in traffic and got a payment, so yes it can be covered. (I doubt you would be covered for running out of petrol, might be regarded as stupidity)

Delayed Departure: £25 excess. Like anyone's gonna claim that then. So if you spend £50 because you were delayed you don't want any of that back?

Catastrophe Cover: As per Cancellation or Curtailment. Explained again I am sure

Holiday Abandonment: !!!!!!? If you don't know what that means then you won't be claiming against it

Strike: Benefit of £200. Like that's gonna buy me a new flight at that short notice. But it may put you up in an hotel until the next flight

Hijack: £500. Brilliant. There are terrorists on board the plane but I'm all right, I've got 500 big ones waiting for me when I get home. You don't seem to get much for a hijack I agree, although not sure what you would expect really.

What a load of bollix.

If you don't like it don't buy it, but it is a big expensive risk you run.

Yoghurt_3

lucylucky wrote: »

Read the T&C of any policy before you take it out.

That way you will know what is covered.

(It does say what is covered and what is not in my policy)

Good idea.

I was just having a look at justcover.ie (I live in Ireland), at their Annual Multi Trip policy.

At €78 for all the family, I nearly broke the habit of a lifetime and bought it.......but look at this:

REMEMBER: This policy does not cover you for the first E55,000 or the
amount covered by your Private Health Insurer (whichever is the greater)
where you have received hospital in-patient treatment.Therefore if you require
hospital in-patient treatment, please contact your Private Health Insurer for

assistance.

Now am I reading that wrong or does it say that if you need emergency hospital treatment abroad you have to pay the first €55k of it, and the insurance company will pay the rest? :eek:

ferf1223

Yoghurt wrote: »

Now am I reading that wrong or does it say that if you need emergency hospital treatment abroad you have to pay the first €55k of it, and the insurance company will pay the rest? :eek:

Did you just ignore the next paragraph?

If you require hospital out-patient treatment, or you do not have Private Health Insurance please contact FirstAssist Emergency Service who will provide immediate help in the event of an Insured Person’s illness or injury arising outside Ireland – they provide a 24 hour multi-lingual emergency service 365 days a year and can be contacted by telephone or fax.