Travel insurance recommendations?

Scam

Scam

Scam

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
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London
I'm sure it's all good until you need to claim, but who do you guys all use? We used to have cover via work but that has now ceased :o Pretty sure I used Direct Travel back in the day to include ski trips.. Any worth recommending before I hit the usual comparison sites? Thanks.
 
Csn ypu get it through your bank premium accounts? Has worked out best deal for me with others bits you get. Thought if you any medical bits nationwide wanted more money where natwest was fine.
 
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Mine is via First Direct - don't think it's avaliable now for new customers.

But it's world wide family cover - Claimed twice in last 15 years on it and super smooth/easy claim/quick payment both times.

Check out the packaged accounts - they usually work out good value over the years.
 
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Csn ypu get it through your bank premium accounts? Has worked out best deal for me with others bits you get. Thought if you any medical bits nationwide wanted more money where natwest was fine.
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Yeah unfortunately the only bank account we pay for is our Santander joint account but that doesn’t give you anything. We’re very good at avoiding paying for things we don’t need !
 
Scam said:
Yeah unfortunately the only bank account we pay for is our Santander joint account but that doesn’t give you anything. We’re very good at avoiding paying for things we don’t need !
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Why are you paying for it and not getting anything? I don't use Santander but surely they must have a proper account with insurance etc.

I pay £20/m with NatWest, for worldwide travel insurance for the whole family, plus phone insurance (would cover you both if it was joint account), UK breakdown cover, plus few other discounts etc.

Before that I used AA if I wanted just travel insurance.
 
A2Z said:
Why are you paying for it and not getting anything? I don't use Santander but surely they must have a proper account with insurance etc.
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I think it’s £4/month which gives you cashback on bills and a better interest rate on balances. So with those two combined we earn from it every month rather than paying for it.
 
I get an annual one from AA (AXA is the actual underwriter), £88 a year exc US, Canada, Caribbean and winter sports, that is their Gold (top) package.

Insurance recommendation is useless with actual claim experience and I did claim on mine this year when I had dropped a camera in Japan. They paid out without any paperwork, just took my word on it over the phone for the claim of £300.
 
Scam said:
Yeah unfortunately the only bank account we pay for is our Santander joint account but that doesn’t give you anything. We’re very good at avoiding paying for things we don’t need !
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We pay £20 a month for our NatWest joint account and with that you get WorldWide Travel insurance (this one actually includes skiing etc.) and both our iPhones insured, we don't need it but we'd also get breakdown cover as well, there is no way we'd get travel insurance and 2 x iPhones insured for less than £240 a year so without anything else included we're saving
 
I personally have a Nationwide Flex Plus account which provides mobile phone insurance, breakdown cover and family travel insurance inc. winter sports cover, I recently went on a cruise and upgraded the cover to include 12 months cruise cover for my partner and I for £40.

I've never claimed on the travel insurance admittedly however when using the mobile phone and breakdown cover previously the service provided has been very good.
 
Although there is a tendacy to just "get some insurance", travel insurance is something you should take some time over, particularly the health end of it.

Note that many of the polices that come with bank accounts or credit cards do not cover for pre-existing conditions or issues that they deem to be related to those conditions, and many of those policies do not allow pre-existing conditions to be added at an extra cost. So fine as long as no one in your party has ever had anything wrong with them medically. But if, for example, you take medication for high blood pressure, and you have a heart issue while on holiday, do you really want to get into a back and forth when you are really unwell with your insurance company, as to whether they determine this circulatory condition is related to your pre-existing medicinally controlled high blood pressure for which there is no coverage.

I use the above as an example. The health side of travel insurance is the one you need to be really careful about. At the end of the day if you lose your luggage or the whole holiday goes **** up for some reason, that's a finite expense which will hurt if the cover isn't right, but if something does go badly wrong health wise, you REALLY don't want to get caught for potentially massive bills because you thought you were covered but where not, or indeed have the required treatment refused because the insurance won't sanction payment.
 
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tangey said:
Although there is a tendacy to just "get some insurance", travel insurance is something you should take some time over, particularly the health end of it.

Note that many of the polices that come with bank accounts or credit cards do not cover for pre-existing conditions or issues that they deem to be related to those conditions, and many of those policies do not allow pre-existing conditions to be added at an extra cost. So fine as long as no one in your party has ever had anything wrong with them medically. But if, for example, you take medication for high blood pressure, and you have a heart issue while on holiday, do you really want to get into a back and forth when you are really unwell with your insurance company, as to whether they determine this circulatory condition is related to your pre-existing medicinally controlled high blood pressure for which there is no coverage.

I use the above as an example. The health side of travel insurance is the one you need to be really careful about. At the end of the day if you lose your luggage or the whole holiday goes **** up for some reason, that's a finite expense which will hurt if the cover isn't right, but if something does go badly wrong health wise, you REALLY don't want to get caught for potentially massive bills because you thought you were covered but where not, or indeed have the required treatment refused because the insurance won't sanction payment.
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You have to stipulate current health conditions when taking a policy out so why would you not think you have to inform your 'perk' travel insurance of current health conditions?

The NatWest policy I'm in with clearly states on the paperwork sent out that to cover pre-existing conditions to call them up for a quote, I've diabetes and each year it costs less than £60 to add it to the policy.

We've only had to claim once and it was settled within 48 hours of ringing them up.
 
Maundie said:
You have to stipulate current health conditions when taking a policy out so why would you not think you have to inform your 'perk' travel insurance of current health conditions?

The NatWest policy I'm in with clearly states on the paperwork sent out that to cover pre-existing conditions to call them up for a quote, I've diabetes and each year it costs less than £60 to add it to the policy.

We've only had to claim once and it was settled within 48 hours of ringing them up.
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Many do not cover any pre-existing conditions nor allow you to specify them, and I expect many people are unaware that they do not have full coverage. For example the travel insurance that comes as standard with the american express platinum card, and the travel insurance with Revolut has no ability to specify pre-existing conditions, and both do not cover them. Hence my advise to consider whether whatever insurance you have via a bank is actually suitable and provides the coverage you need.

Some consider travel insurance a simple "I have it" tickbox exercise.
 
tangey said:
Hence my advise to consider whether whatever insurance you have via a bank is actually suitable and provides the coverage you need.
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Not sure why you are singling out bank travel insurance specifically, surely this is common sense advice for any insurance policy.

Had no issues adding asthma as a condition to my NatWest travel insurance with no additional fee.
 
A2Z said:
Not sure why you are singling out bank travel insurance specifically, surely this is common sense advice for any insurance policy.

Had no issues adding asthma as a condition to my NatWest travel insurance with no additional fee.
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I'm not singling them out, 5 of the posters prior to my posting made comments related to travel insurance coming via a bank account package. I'm advising that whereas when you go to buy travel insurance online you are asked various pertinent questions about your health history, when you get one of these perks you are not asked anything. Many, who don't stop to consider might assume they have coverage, when they may well not have. In fact they might not have ANY coverage for any health related issue.

For example, how many people are aware that if you are waiting for tests or simply waiting for a consultants appointment for a diagnosis (i.e. you have an undiagnosed condition), the majority of standard insurance will not cover you for previously declared pre-existing conditions, even when they previously did. Given how many are on waiting lists for one thing or another, many may well be travelling thinking they have insurance when they do not. I was in the middle of some tests trying to get to the bottom of something recently( which turned out to be nothing), and when renewing my insurance was told they would not only not cover an undiagnosed condition (which is fair enough) but would also not cover pre-existing conditions when I had an undiagnosed condition. i.e they would not cover my controlled high blood pressure as a pre-existing condition (and therefore any circulatory condition I might have on holiday), whilst I was getting some tests for a digestive issue. I was referred to the UK insurance association who put me in contact with a company that did offer insurance.

The above is far from exclusively related to travel insurance that is received as a perk or part of a financial package, however you will be asked "have you any undiagnosed condition" at the time you do an application for travel insurance, and will also be advised that you need to tell the insurance company should you at any time have such an issue, or indeed get a diagnosis for something.

As there is no requirement to go thru a health questionnaire with these packages products many who might not have previously applied for separate travel insurance might reasonably not be aware of the complexity of the issue.
 
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LV or MPI for me. Had annual policies with both, with winter sports cover. Have had to claim on both. A quick and easy experience with the claims paid out with no quibbles.

MPI was a cancellation due to a member of the group not being able to travel for medical reasons. LV for delayed baggage - claimed almost £500 as was for a snowboard trip and all clothing and equipment was delayed.

Don’t recommend coverwise. A painful long drawn out claim process, with poor assistance when abroad and a member of the group in hospital.
 
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