Backpackers Travel Insurance

Many people today are traveling for vacations or business. Any time you travel, things can happen. Life has a way of intervening at any given time. You can need a prescription filled while on a vacation or (God forbid) even need surgery. When you are traveling during hurricane season, you may need to be evacuated. Alternatively, perhaps your trip may be delayed for some reason. Each of these is an excellent reason to invest in travel insurance.

Travel insurance is protection for you as you travel. It will help cover medical expenses and other expenses that you may discover unexpected as you take a trip somewhere.

You can easily arrange for travel insurance when you book your trip through your travel agent. They will be happy to help arrange travel insurance for you. It is important to go over the “fine print” and make sure the policy you are purchasing covers exactly what you think you might deal with.

We cannot always plan for everything, but it is very useful to help protect one’s self from potential disaster, injury or even frustration. Travel insurance is especially helpful when you are traveling internationally. When you have medical problems, your travel insurance will help you if you need a prescription or become ill in some way. Sometimes just knowing that your medical expenses would be taken care of is a tremendous peace of mind for so many of us. This can help you to travel in a relaxed attitude, knowing that everything is managed for you.

Travel insurance is also helpful to protect yourself in terms of your flight arrangements. Your travel insurances protects you from cancellation or even just a delayed departure. Having travel insurance insures that other arrangements will be made for you easily. By having travel insurance the company that provides the travel insurance will help make alternative arrangements for you. Be sure to read the “fine print” to understand exactly what type of arrangements they are legally bound to make for you, because those are the type of arrangements they will make if this circumstance arises.

Having travel insurance can also cover something we don’t like to think about, especially while traveling for business or pleasure: death. Travel insurance would even help to cover international funeral expenses if this was necessary. Accidents or other things do happen. Knowing that arrangements would be managed can offer tremendous peace of mind to many that purchase travel insurance.

Often travel insurance is not very expensive. Policies do vary and not every traveler needs every policy that is out there. There are many different types of travel insurance available today. There is even honeymoon insurance, to protect and insure one’s honeymoon! Certainly, there is a type of travel insurance that will more than satisfy you and give you tremendous peace of mind. Having insurance is so helpful for those things we don’t like to think about. Traveling can be stressful at times; having travel insurances makes it so much less so.

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A rapidly increasing number of Britons is putting their travel insurance at risk by booking different parts of their trip separately, a new study carried out by Marks & Spencer (M&S) Money has recently revealed.

According to the research, an increase in internet availability and usage is responsible for the new numbers: an entire half of British holiday makers book their travels independently instead of using a travel agent. But the drawback of shunning the traditional package holidays is that travel insurance policies may not cover all aspects of an individually booked trip, says M&S.

Commenting on the popularity of self-booked holidays, M&S Money revealed, perhaps unsurprisingly due to the recent surge in internet use, that as many as 78% of people with internet access use it to research holiday costs and destinations. According to the study, the most popular reason for a trip abroad is now to see family and friends, rendering the package holiday obsolete.

The research revealed that 29% of Brits now book every element of a holiday separately, meaning that no one company holds overall responsibility: the flight, hotel, and activities are all individually and separately organised. Consequently, travel insurance becomes less reliable. In the past, a travel agent would have been responsible for the entire holiday and, if a flight was cancelled or delayed causing a traveller to miss a later flight, the travel agent would organise alternative travel. However, taking control of booking means taking control of cancellations and delays and can result in extra costs – travel insurance does not properly cover a DIY holiday in the same way it would do a package deal.

According to M&S Money, 35% of UK travellers encountered a cancelled or delayed departure during their last trip, 21 per cent of whom were travelling independently and were not covered by insurance. These statistics highlight the importance of adequate travel insurance for solo holiday makers.

The recent chaos at Heathrow’s Terminal Five is an example of how travel plans can unexpectedly change. When at the opening day of Heathrow’s new £4.3 bn terminal was blighted by countless cancelled flights, baggage delays and a temporary suspension in check-in, many travellers’ insurance deals did not cover the situation.

Following this unfortunate episode, some insurers have downright stopped offering cover for lost luggage or delayed flights to travellers going through Terminal 5 at Heathrow.

“We cannot insure for events that have already happened,” explained a spokeswoman for Direct Line, one of the insurance firms that have taken this stance. She then added: “Insurance only covers events that the customer is not aware of at the time of purchase. People calling up on our travel insurance quote line were told this specifically.”

In response to this gap in the market, M&S Money has decided to introduce an insurance policy specifically for holiday makers who book it themselves.

“As independent travel has grown we have identified changes in how customers travel and book holidays. This has changed what they need from travel insurance.” said Brendan Cook, chief executive of M&S Money.

M&S’s innovation seems to stand alone however, in a sea of insurance companies which are not answering to the current needs of modern travellers. A possible affecting factor may be the recent increase in budget holiday use. Budget flight companies offering unbelievably cheap deals are notorious for ‘giving you what you payed for.’ In other words, they often loose baggage, delay and even cancel flights. This has caused an upsurge in travel insurance claims which the insurance companies have found difficult to follow.