Travel Insurance Dates

freccles

Holiday insurance. If you buy single trip insurance and the trip starts say 1 July, is that the date the insurance starts? What happens if you fall ill on 25 June and can't go?

sheramber

The policy starts on the date you take it out.

You should take out insurance as soon as you book the  holiday.  You are then covered from that day.

There is no benefit is delaying taking out the insurance

bagand96

If you're buying a single trip policy you enter the dates of the trip, however cover will start from the purchase date.

If you're buying an annual policy then the start date needs to be the purchase date for cover to start (or the renewal date if you're replacing an existing policy)

TELLIT01

Check to see if the dates of travel AND the date the policy is to commence are both requested.  If you enter commencement date as the date of travel you will not be covered before that date.  If in doubt call the insurer to confirm.

zagfles

sheramber said:

The policy starts on the date you take it out.

You should take out insurance as soon as you book the  holiday.  You are then covered from that day.

There is no benefit is delaying taking out the insurance

As a blanket statement that is wrong. It depends on how much you'd lose through cancellation compared to the insurance cost plus the excess. For instance we've been on loads of holidays where there'd have been minimal loss if we'd cancelled, eg when we went to NZ the flights were cancellable for a small admin fee (less than the cost of insurance excess, never mind the insurance itself) and the hotel we'd booked was cancellable free. Similar when we've been to the US on road trips with no accomodation booked. Or even when we've been to Europe on £10 Ryanair flights, where the flight costs were the only potential loss and the insurance excess wouldn't even have covered them. Or potentially if there's a reason you might need to cancel which isn't covered by insurance.

Bit moot for me as I have an annual policy anyway, but buying insurance as soon as you book may be true for most particularly packages, but not for everyone.