Travel Insurance: 7 Money-Saving Tips
When 
planning your next holiday, travel insurance probably won’t be high on your list of priorities, but this shouldn’t be the case. If something should go wrong whilst you are travelling, medical bills can be costly and the cost of emergency repatriation; wallet busting.
To make sure you are covered at a price that is affordable, follow these 7 money saving tips:
1. Shop around. Cheapest isn’t always best, so aim to find a policy that is cost effective whilst retaining all the features you need. Compare policies from at least three or four insurers and shortlist to two contenders from which you can choose a winner. Making use of comparison sites such as moneysupermarket.com, confused.com and gocompare.com can help you to find cheap travel insurance and will allow you to compare many policies in one go.
2. Don’t double up. Before shelling out your hard-earned cash, make sure you don’t already have travel insurance cover. Many bank accounts and credit cards now offer free cover to account holders so it is worth checking if you have this and what levels of cover are provided.
3. Get a free European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). If you live in the UK and have a national insurance number, you are eligible for this free card which entitles you to free or reduced cost emergency medical treatment in the majority of the EU member countries (some exclusions apply).
4. Avoid packaged insurance. Allowing your tour operator to package travel insurance into the deal can be a costly mistake. Stand-alone policies more often than not come out cheaper and usually offer higher levels of cover. Allow your travel agent to give you a quote and compare this to several stand-alone policies to help you choose the most cost-effective solution.
5. Ensure minimum cover levels. To make sure you don’t end up losing out financially should you need to claim, make sure your holiday insurance policy has the following minimum levels of cover: medical cover of £2 million (£3-5 for the USA), £1 million in personal liability cover, £3,000 cancellation cover, £1-2,000 baggage cover and holiday cash cover of around £3-500.
6. Watch out for excesses. These are used to try to limit the number of claims that are made by making the policy holder pay the first chunk of any claim. Cheaper policies have bigger excesses so you may find that to claim for £100 stolen holiday money, you have to pay a £75 excess, which is hardly worth the trouble. Aim to pay a little more on your policy to bring the excess levels down and make the policy more cost-effective.
7. Is single trip the cheapest option? If you only travel once or twice per year, then a single-trip policy taken out before each vacation will probably prove to be the most effective option. Should you travel more often than this or for long durations, a multi-trip or annual policy should prove to be cheaper. If you have children, look for a family travel insurance policy which may give you free cover for those under 18 and save you money over purchasing separate policies.
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