080 - Get good travel insurance

Last week we featured an interview with Graham Kingaby, who is the Insurance Director at World Nomads Travel Insurance. We talked about travel insurance tips, what to look out for and about how World Nomads specifically caters to travellers' needs. This week we want to talk about our approach to travel insurance as well as look at how to find travel insurance and approach making a claim.

Finding insurance
Finding insurance can be hard. There's lots of small print to get through and plenty of traps. Not to mention really strange pricing. The three main types of policy are:
Single trip
Multi trip, and
Backpackers

When looking for insurance, if you have any questions AT ALL about your coverade, pick up the phone and ask. The wait times and treatment you experience as a potential customer won't neccessarily show you how good their customer service is, but it'll help.

Ask about:
Do I need a home address?
Must I be in my country of origin when I start and finish?
Do they cover each country you're going to?
It is more expensive for some countries?
If so, can you specify when you'll be in the expensive ones?
Do they cover flights home in case of emergencies?
What about cancellations or bankruptcy?
How do you make a claim and what's the average response time?

Chris and Marta from http://atravelaroundtheworld.com have just been pricing insurance for a 11 month trip. They're based in the UK, and you can read their quotes here.

http://www.atravelaroundtheworld.com/2008/11/insurance-dilemma.html

Recording Purchases
So how can you make sure you're actually going to get what you claim? This is the big question and one that makes me really sceptical about insurance. Obviously travellers are not going to keep paperwork!

We try to:
Scan/photograph receipts.
Keep them locally and upload them to a website and email them to ourselves.
We use flickr.com and their private settings.
Try to create believable evidence.

Acting responsibly
Last week Graham's main tip was to act as if you were uninsured. If companies can prove you were acting negligently, it's probably they won't validate your claim.

Finally, a tip from twitter.com, where we asked about experiences with travel insurance. Achuka said: "don't let travel insurance expire while you are out of your native country... ask J - she'll know the prob with that :)" We do! That's why we've ended up using World Nomads for our insurance. You can start your policy from any country in the world. Thankfully someone does!

Don't forget to check out the competitions on this month at Everything Everywhere and also drop by Irish Fireside if that's your cup of tea. Or shot of baileys.

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