Trifter

If you are the type of person who likes to travel, then you’re my soul mate. I’ve personally traveled extensively over the years, I spent about 10 years roaming the world as a young man, and it was the best time of my life.

At that time I was too young to worry about the innumerable dangers that are present when you travel. I never had any travel insurance – again, I was young. Now I wouldn’t travel without one, it’s just too risky.

There are lots of reasons why you shouldn’t travel without prior purchase of a travel insurance, either. What happens when you travel for example to Tel Aviv, you arrive there safely, but your luggage doesn’t? It might have been stolen or just lost, but anyways, you’d have to buy new things there and then, and who is going to pay for it?

Or, talking about the Middle East, you booked a flight to Istanbul, and three days before your scheduled departure a terrorist incident takes place. It would be just too dangerous to travel there, particularly if you have planned to take your family with you. You would have to cancel the flight, but who would pay for it?

You’re vacationing in Cancun in the south of Mexico, and suddenly there comes a government order to evacuate the whole region because of an approaching hurricane? Would you be prepared for that?

You are spending the perfect holiday with your family in Mallorca, when suddenly one of your daughters develops a high fever. Would you have the resources to find an English speaking doctor and appropriate medical assistance in a hospital?

Living in times of financial meltdowns and company closures, the tour operator you booked the whole package with goes bankrupt- now what?

Your sixteen-year-old son persuades you, against your better judgment, to let him rent a motorbike. He crashes it, in the process he hurts a local kid that needs hospitalization, and the police are about to arrest either him or you for negligence – would you have the resources to find an English speaking lawyer?

You yourself are a diabetic, but somebody in a Rome restaurant steals your handbag – and with it the insulin inside. How would you get your emergency prescription as soon as possible?

The list is endless, and again, the way things are now, I wouldn’t even think of taking my family on a vacation abroad without getting an adequate insurance.

First of all, before you take my advice and start getting quotes from different insurance companies like AXA, Norwich Union, Zurich, NIG, Allianz, Legal & General, Fortis and Lloyds of London, to name but a few, you have to understand that a travel insurance policy covers practically all countries of this world, unless the State Department (in the case of the US) or the Foreign Office  (in the case of the UK) issues an advisory against traveling  to a certain place. If you insist on traveling anyway to that country then all bets are off, since no insurance policy will cover you.

There are different types of travel insurance available, depending on your needs. A holiday travel insurance would be recommended if you just want to go skiing for a couple of days to Switzerland. If you travel frequently, then check out the annual multi-trip insurance policies, there you basically get a discount.

In any event, take the right decision and buy a travel insurance. Any kind of insurance seems like wasted money if nothing has happened yet, but that’s the nature of the beast – something bad MIGHT happen, and you want to be covered.