Veteran travel blogger Nomadic Matt has posted an excellent article on buying travel insurance, including recommendations on the best insurers.
The most important advice I can give you on this topic is to buy your insurance as soon as you buy any travel product – air fares, a cruise, accommodation, car rental, coach tour. Whatever it is, insure it as soon as you pay for it.
The advent of Covid-19, if nothing else, shows how important travel insurance is . . . but it also shows how important it is to read the terms and condition, especially the bits about exclusions. Most insurers these days have a specific exclusion for pandemics.
Bastards! They are happy to take your money but then exclude just about everything that is likely to result in a claim.
The worst mistake you can make is to think “I’ll do it closer to the departure date”.
It’s a world in which anything can happen
They say a week is a long time in politics, well a day is a long time in the travel industry.
It can all go pear-shaped for the most obscure of reasons.
Who would have thought that a bat in one of those god-awful wet markets in Asia would have us all holed up like we are on home detention? The advent of Covid-19, if nothing else, shows how important travel insurance is . . . but it also shows how important it is to read the terms and condition, especially the bits about exclusions. Most insurers these days have a specific exclusion for pandemics.
Bastards! They are happy to take your money but then exclude just about everything that is likely to result in a claim.
A dopey digger driver caused multi-million dollar losses
For instance, would you think a clumsy digger driver in Northland, New Zealand, could disrupt your travel plans?
This fellow struck the fuel pipeline that transports, among other things, avgas to the waiting aircraft at Auckland International Airport.
It’s a 168 kilometre buried pipeline running from the Marsden Point Refinery to a bulk oil storage terminal at Wiri in South Auckland. It was shut down for 10 days following the discovery of a leak on 14 September 2017.
The result was cancellation of flights not just in New Zealand but right throughout airline networks.
If your flight was cancelled it was too late to buy insurance against such an event. You’ve done your dough, Joe.
It’s one of the essentials for your trip
Nomadic Matt says “Travel insurance is one of the most important things you’ll need for your trip. You wouldn’t have a car without car insurance, a home without home insurance, and you can’t have a trip without travel insurance.
“Why?
“Travel insurance is worth getting because travel insurance is what will provide you with medical coverage when you get sick or injured, reimburse you when your camera breaks, your flight is canceled, a family member dies and you have to come home, if lose a bag, or something is stolen.
“It’s all-purpose emergency coverage and is the single most important thing you should get for your trip (but hope to never have to use).
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