Very often when purchasing travel insurance travellers go on price, and sometimes on the reputation or brand of the company selling it.  However, which plan should you select?  There are comprehensive, visa-specific and non-comprehensive plans on the market.

Here are some guidelines based on a few factors to help you reach an appropriate choice:

• Destination
• Age
• Duration of your trip
• Sports
• Baggage

Destination

To a large extent the destination sets the risk level for the insurer and this affects the price.  If you are travelling to a country that is known for, say, kidnapping, you should choose a plan that covers this and covers it well.  Few policies include injury or death due to the acts of warfare or terrorists.

Some travel insurance policies are guided by the status of the destination country according to the British Foreign Office or US State Department web sites.  This is true even if the policy is issued in a third country and does not involve citizens of those lands.  If the destination is deemed a war zone then normal insurance will not apply.  (The insurers will reason that you have deliberately put yourself in harm’s way.)

If the place you may be travelling to is a tornado or earthquake zone then logically the policy you select should cover disruptions and damages, injury or death arising from those sorts of natural disaster.

Also related to the destination is visa-related health insurance.  Visitors from certain overseas lands that apply for an EU (Schengen) visa will have to offer proof of suitable insurance without which the visa will not be issued.  Medical cover for Schengen visa purposes is more expensive than regular cover.

Age

If you are over 85 years you will find it difficult to obtain suitable cover.  The age varies by company and can be lower, so shop around if this applies to you.  Senior cover starts from around 65 and goes up in steps from there.

If you cannot obtain cover then check out what your regular medical insurance scheme covers: you may still be okay to travel.

For younger folks there is student cover that applies to those taking gap years or extended holidays that will last a few months.  The maximum age for this varies from 29 through to 35 depending on the individual insurance company.

Duration of your trip

The longer the trip, the more pricey it will be, though the rate per day will likely reduce.  Here, one would want to shop around to find the best policy and the most appropriate company.  A less comprehensive policy will be cheaper, but read the small print and note the benefits and exclusions, so you know exactly what is covered.  You will find it gives greater peace of mind to have more extensive coverage.  The longer that you are travelling the more likely it is that some sort of medical emergency may befall you.

Sports

If you are going to be participating in dangerous sports such as bungee jumping, white-water rafting or paragliding, you will need to state this to the insurance company at the time of taking out the cover.  Such activities do not usually preclude cover but they affect risk and therefore the price and you will need to declare your intentions if you expect to obtain cover.

Some policies will not cover these activities at all and you’d be in a sticky situation if you’ve broken a leg while skiing to find that out afterwards.

Footnote: Baggage

Though this article is mainly concerned with medical insurance, you find that baggage insurance is frequently available as an option on the medical insurance, particularly if you are purchasing insurance online.

The amounts that are covered for lost luggage vary from one plan to another.  If you’re carrying expensive cameras and suchlike, you need to make certain that they are fully covered.  The best is if you are permitted to nominate specific items.  That way there is no uncertainty.

If you have expensive items you may find it better to include a travel option in your comprehensive insurance than to try include them in a travel policy.  All too often travel policies have a limit in value per claimed item, and it is low.  So your claim would be subjected to “averaging”, even though the total sum insured was correct.

Get the details

The first thing to do is head for your airline’s ticket desk.  Find out what flight you have been put onto.  If you have a connecting fight on the same ticket, ask for the details of what the new connecting flight will be.  Should you have booked your ticket through an agent, you can call the agent as well, but we would still suggest getting the information first hand at the airport – the airline staff are almost certainly better informed and of more immediate help to you than an agent who is possibly half the world away.  And maybe asleep in bed.

If the delay is going to leave you stuck overnight, ask if accommodation will be provided.

Travel insurance

Your travel insurance may cover basic essentials and food as part of “delayed connection cover” but this may only activate after a certain number of hours.  (Usually from about six hours.)  Most policies work on a claim-back basis, so you will need to pay for items as needed and then claim back on arrival back in your home country.

If you have your policy wording in your hand luggage it will make it easier for you to check, but if the delay is as little as two hours, it is probably not covered.  For more information on taking out travel insurance, please click here.

Visas

If an overnight stay is required and the airline agrees to put everyone up in a hotel, there may still be a problem.  The airline is probably unable to provide you with a visa.  (Even in those lands where the airline management is indistinguishable from the government, the airline is under no obligation to arrange a visa for you.)

If you know ahead of time that you will be transiting an airport that for visa reasons you may not leave, be sure to check before you travel if they have a transit hotel in the terminal.  Then should you suffer an extended or overnight delay inconvenience, you could have this as an option B.

If you obtain a visa for a country with the intention of making a stop-over on the return leg, ensure that it is a multiple-entry visa if you will be close to the minimum connecting time on the outgoing leg.  We heard of one group who were forced to spend a day and a half at an airport on their way back!  Through no fault of their own they had missed the connecting flight on the forward leg of their journey and accepted the airline’s offer of a non-transit hotel for a few hours.  On the way back the authorities refused them admission to the country because they had already used their single-entry visas!

The only warning that they could have had was that their connection time was exactly equal to the minimum connection time.

Relax

Stress, it is said, comes from your response to a situation, rather than the situation itself.  Its easier said than done, but there is not much one can do to control what is really an external factor.  If you are going to a key event that cannot be rescheduled, by all means check out other airlines and see if you can get an earlier flight or another mode of transport to your final destination.

If you are to attend a funeral, for instance, it is likely to be at short notice and you may have to leave on pretty much the first flight, leaving little time for delays in the schedule.  You may need to adapt your plans as you go, particularly if there are delays due to bad weather.  In many parts of Europe high-speed trains are about as quick city-to-city as the flight would have been, and may still be operating even when flights have been grounded.

If it’s not a matter of extreme urgency then you can while away the time at a coffee shop, unwind in an airport lounge if your budget permits, or simply sit on a bench and watch the world go by.  You will get to your final destination in a better frame of mind.

It is best to be prepared.  If you are not insured on that lovely ski holiday in Austria and you break a leg (or both legs, or even an arm and a leg) the medical and evacuation bills could be astronomical.  If you are not insured, how are you going to pay them?

You may already have some very basic insurance cover linked to your credit card, if you pay for your flights by credit card.  Most major credit cards have this facility, though in some cases they must be “activated”.   Find out (in writing) exactly what insurance benefits your card company offers.  If you have a premium card such as a gold card, or higher, the automatic cover may be extensive.  With an entry-level credit card the insurance cover may be very basic, possibly limited to the immediate costs of a medical emergency and nothing else.  Even then, it may be an insufficient amount of cover.

If the “free” insurance is inadequate you should buy top-up insurance.  The bank or credit card company may offer this.  You could also shop around, though, as many insurance companies sell top-up insurance for credit card holders with basic travel insurance.

Bearing the above in mind, here are a few ‘musts’ that should be included in your cover:

• Medical emergency
• Medical Evacuation or repatriation
• Medical expenses – due to terrorism
• Accompanying family member
• Compassionate emergency visit by one person (some companies will restrict this to a family member)
• In-flight accident
• Lost baggage (including delayed baggage)
• Death (removal of mortal remains)
• Follow-up treatment in your home country
• Travel delay
• Premature return in case of death of a family member
• Legal assistance
• Personal liability.  (This could prove to be a big problem if you, say, knock over a camel that was trying to sleep on the road, while you are in Dubai.  You may find out that it was a very ‘special’ camel to the owner and you have to ‘cough up’ for it.  … For some reason favourite camels seem to suffer many more tragic accidents than unloved ones.)
• Hijack

Some of the above, such as baggage, are regarded by insurers as optional extras.  If you are carrying special equipment, such as cameras, expensive sporting equipment (specific “Golf insurance” is available) or other valuable goods that are pricey, check if they are covered under the baggage cover.  If not, and some travel insurance companies don’t cover these items (except for a low maximum amount not equal to the actual value) consulting your broker for specialist advice about this may be helpful.

In most cases you should insure with a company based in your home country as they will have worked out appropriate risk profiles.  Travel insurance from a foreign company is less likely to have adequate covering and claims are more likely to be repudiated or payouts reduced.

Many countries require proof of travel insurance, sometimes not below a certain amount and may be a visa requirement, for instance for Schengen visas.

As with all guidelines on this web site, the above is based on my own professional experience and my personal travel and does not replace the advice from your registered broker.   The main thing is to be adequately insured.  You never know when it will be needed!

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Mango plane at Cape Town

These days one is able to book airlines directly without having to go through a travel agent.   Yet travel agents have not entirely disappeared and some of them are doing very well indeed.  Why this apparent contradiction?

There are several scenarios in which it is in your best interest to use an agent.

Group Bookings

If you are booking flights for a group of, say, ten or more travellers then do it via an agent.  Different rules apply for group bookings.  An agent is more likely to get you seated in a block together, rather than scattered randomly around the aircraft.  (This depends on how far ahead you are booking – if you leave it too late you may be scattered over several flights!)

A group quotation will come with at least two pages of rules governing it, which it is in your best interests to familiarise yourself with.  Your agent will point out key ones such as cancellation and change policies, but you should take the trouble to read all of them.

Secondary destinations

If you are going to book a flight between major cities such as London, Paris, Frankfurt or New York then your DIY Travel booking will work out fine.

However, if you are travelling between other cities you may very well find that an agent can get you there both cheaper and faster.

How so?  The airlines do not fly from any particular city to any other particular city.  Their route planning works on a hub-and-spoke principle,  The cities we just mentioned are major hubs.  Even if you start at a non-hub airport your DIY routing will work out okay as long as the ultimate destination is a hub.

Agents are specialists with a good knowledge of airline hubs and can often work out alternative routings for you that may be non-direct but cheaper.  Often too, they can find flights to meet connecting flights that have a sensible minimum wait time, rather than leaving you in a possibly boring terminal for 20 hours.

Journeys with multiple stops

The third time that DIY may not be best is where you’re planning a trip with multiple stops.  While some airline sites have search functionality for multi-segment flights, not all do.  The majority have only a departure and final destination selection for on-line bookings.  This is also true for some of the well-known ‘middle-man’ booking sites (and so-called “bucket shops”) where you are searching potentially hundreds of options for a specific route.

Special requirements

If you have extra requirements, such as specific meal selection, wheelchair assistance, meet-and-assist or an unaccompanied minor request, it may often be worth the peace of mind to pay a little more and have the booking competently handled by an agent and would be easier.  Sorting it out yourself can be a considerable hassle, or even impossible (because some airlines do not, for instance, permit kosher or halaal meal requests).  The agent will know, or can find out quickly, which airlines permit meal requests.  This would be of benefit for diabetics, persons who have religious restrictions on what they may eat, and people travelling with babies.

If you have to take a guide dog on board with you, this can involve a lot of ‘red tape’ depending on the carrier, and would save you a lot of time to use an agent.

When DIY Travel works well

When not to use an agent?  Domestic bookings, basic international (hub-to-hub).  Sometimes travel agents have “sweetheart” deals with specific providers that may make components more expensive for you.  Shop around for insurance: I bought travel insurance online for one of my own major journeys 25% cheaper than if I had booked it through the tied broker I usually use.

There is a world of choice on-line and depending on your travel requirements and how much of your own time you wish to spend planning your trip, will decide whether you will go on-line or through an agent.

A tip to remember.  Most Internet booking sites have people behind the scenes, validating and actioning the bookings.  Try to find a company that allows you to speak to the people.  In travel as in other things, there are times that arrangements can fail or otherwise go awry and you will want to hear a voice on the other end, when needed.  A 24 hour contact number is best.