Just over a month ago, my boyfriend and I decided to visit the
beautiful city of Edinburgh for our 5 year anniversary. We live
in Dorset, so we didn't want to spend the whole time travelling.
To make the trip easier on ourselves, we decided to fly there,
and used a travel agent to organise the week long holiday.
Imagine my surprise when I saw an additional £27.50 on the quote
for travel insurance! We were only going to Edinburgh, not
Pittsburgh!
I was offended that they thought we would be so stupid as to get
travel insurance for a trip within the UK. They have hospitals
in Edinburgh, and it really isn't very far away. But later on,
over a cup of hot chocolate, I put some more thought into it.
Holiday disasters can happen anywhere, not just abroad - so I
made a list of what could feasibly go wrong:
· One of us could fall ill before we depart, we'd have no choice
but to cancel the trip. The flights and the hotel were
non-refundable, so we'd have to pay anyway.
· My Grandfather has been ill lately, if he got suddenly worse
then I wouldn't be able to go on holiday. Again, the trip would
have to be cancelled.
· Either of us could be called up for jury service at any time.
· Flights are delayed and cancelled all the time. On top of the
inconvenience, we may need to arrange an overnight stay near the
airport.
· Anything could happen to our luggage, airlines lose suitcases
all the time.
· My boyfriend bought me a wonderful digital camera as a
present, if I lost it, it would be very expensive to replace.
Hang on a minute, what about our Home & Contents insurance
policy? I bet that would cover us for loss of luggage or my
camera as long as I was in the UK. I found the policy and read
the small print. No such luck, only 'personal possessions' that
were listed on the policy counted, so everything in the luggage
wouldn't be covered, and I'd need to make a phone call to get
the camera included on the policy.
I remembered something else - we had over 4 years of no claims
discount on our Home & Contents policy. If we had to make a
claim, we'd lose the no claims discount. Our premiums would go
sky high after that, they were already high enough as it is, at
£305 a year. I realised that I really should look for a cheaper
Home & Contents policy at the time of renewal, and promised
myself to do that in future.
After the investigations I had made so far, I realised that
£27.50 for a travel policy wasn't actually too bad.
I've never been one to rest on my laurels though. I might have
decided that travel insurance was a good idea, but it didn't
mean I was willing to accept the price quoted by the travel
agent.
I went online to get some more quotes. The first two or three
sites I looked at couldn't give me what I wanted, but 10 minutes
later, I struck gold. I found a single trip travel policy for
the UK, and it was a good £10 cheaper than the travel agent's
quote.
I read the small print, no point signing up without knowing all
the facts. I was pleased to see all the points I had listed were
covered.
Now the exclusions - was it all too good to be true after all?
Phew - no need to worry. If the holiday was less than 25 miles
from our home address, or for less than 2 nights, then we
wouldn't be covered. No problem there. Otherwise the only
downside was that we'd have to pay the £30 if we needed to make
a claim. Fair enough.
Happy with the policy I'd found and with the decision that we
did need travel insurance after all, I bought the travel
insurance policy there and then.
|
