Good Travel Insurance Policies

Travelling is an activity many of us enjoy and choose to do in our free time to rest and relax, see family, or enjoy warmer climes. However, there are elements of planning a holiday that need to be thought about carefully and planned well in advance to avoid stress and unnecessary anxiety. Booking accommodation, planning activities, prepping medication, and booking travel insurance should all be on your to-do list.

If you have a medical condition and worry about your travel insurance, then Medical Travel Compared can help you find travel insurance for a range of medical conditions, including annual travel insurance for pre-existing medical conditions or single-trip for one-off holidays. If you’re looking at getting medical travel insurance, then there are some crucial things you should be looking for that make a good travel insurance policy, and we explain these in more detail in this article.

What does a good travel insurance policy look like?

• Cancellation
• Personal Accident
• Medical & Repatriation Expenses
• Mobility Aids
• Baggage/Belongings Loss
• Theft
• Specific Add-ons such as Gadget Cover, Cruise Cover or Winter Sports Cover

Cancellation

As a basic, you want to ensure that your travel insurance policy includes cancellation or curtailment. There may be a plethora of reasons that this part of the policy is needed, a member of the travelling party may not be able to travel due to a medical condition, airlines or travel may be cancelled or accommodation might be cancelled. Whatever the reason, if you have cancellation within your policy, you have peace of mind that you will get your travel and accommodation costs back that you can’t claim back from the original booking companies.

All of the policies shown on the Medical Travel Compared website will offer refunds for the following reasons within their cancellation and curtailment, and it is worth checking you are covered for these things when choosing a policy:

• Death, serious injury or illness to yourself, somebody who you’re relying on to travel, an immediate member of your family or somebody who you will be staying with abroad.
• If your accommodation is cancelled.
• Cover for natural disasters (this is included in some policies but not all)

READ MORE: What is Curtailment?

Personal Accident

As with any activity or holiday, you can’t predict the future and accidents happen, even when you’re least expecting them, so when choosing a travel insurance policy, you want to make sure that personal accident is covered within it. Personal accident cover will make sure you are protected if you or a member of your travelling party should have to pay out due to an accident or emergency. This will include the likes of medical and hospital expenses.

READ MORE: Your Guide to Handling Holiday Illness & Accidents

Medical & Repatriation Expenses

For those with medical conditions, this might be one of the most important things to make sure is included within your policy and that is medical and repatriation expense cost should you need it whilst you’re away. When choosing your policy, you will have been asked questions about your medical conditions to make sure you are offered the correct policy and any additional needs are covered, but the basics will be covered within medical and repatriation expenses. This will cover you should you need any emergency assistance or medical repatriation back to the UK whilst you’re abroad.

READ MORE: Repatriation Cover Explained

Mobility Aids

If you rely on a mobility aid, the thought of it getting damaged or lost whilst you’re enjoying a holiday isn’t something worth thinking about. As part of many of the policies on Medical Travel Compared, your mobility aids such as waling sticks, walking frames and mobility scooters are covered should they be lost, damaged or stolen.

Baggage/Belongings Loss

The last thing you want to realise when you arrive at your holiday destination is that you’ve lost your luggage or it has been misplaced, but these things happen, so making sure you are covered within your policy is essential. You want to make sure that your travel insurance policy covers you should you find yourself without your luggage and most policies will include cover for personal possessions (as well as cash) if lost, damaged or stolen.

It is worth noting that most policies will offer gadget cover as an addition and that this isn’t included in the basic baggage and belonging cover.

Theft

You can’t control what people around you are doing, so making sure you are covered for theft on your holiday insurance policy is wise. Theft cover will make sure you that you will be reimbursed for the items that you have been stolen within your luggage.

Extras To Consider

If you’re going on a specialised trip like a cruise or a skiing holiday, there are some extras that you should consider adding to your insurance policy, to ensure that you are covered for all eventualities.

Gadget cover – if you are planning to take gadgets away with you that are valuable to you, then it is worth adding gadget cover to your policy. Gadget cover can cover the following devices:

• Mobile Phone (smartphone/iPhone)
• Laptop
• iPad/Tablet
• Digital Camera/Camera Lenses
• iPod/MP3 Player
• Games Console
• Kindle/e-reader
• Sat Nav
• DVD Player
• Bluetooth Headset
• Headphones/Earphones

Cruise cover – cruise travel insurance is specifically for those who are travelling on a cruise and may encounter cruise-related issues.

Winter sports cover – With the high risks related to winter sports like skiing and snowboarding, additional cover is often needed to cover you for incidents, accidents and injuries that may occur on your holiday. If you’re planning a snow-capped holiday, then consider looking into winter sports cover.

Making sure you’re covered whilst planning your upcoming holiday is important - we hope that this guide has given you some ideas on the sorts of things you should make sure are included in your policy of choice.

We have a range of guides and blogs, all full of useful information about our policies.