I can still hear my dad asking me if I had bought travel insurance when I took off on the first of many holidays I would be flying without parental control.
And because I was a student then with very little money to my name I opted for cutting some corners and ignoring his (extremely wise) advice.
That one trip went fine, but a few months later I took off again and, to his dismay, without appropriate insurance again.
This time my excuse was that I wasn’t going too far and surely nothing could go wrong and if it did I could have called for help.
Well, my suitcase didn’t turn up; it actually never did and I ended up having to spend all of my cash on new clothing rather than on the holiday itself.
Of course, had I had insurance I would have had eventually been refunded, but I guess I was lucky because a lot worse could have happened not only losing me the little cash I had saved, but putting me into some hefty debt.
A research recently published by Age Concern Insurance Services revealed that the cost of travel insurance claims can top £117,000 – An expense that some of us are ready to risk for the sake of premiums costing less than £20.00!
All too often the unexpected does happen and even if we’d rather not think about a possible fractured spine (the cost of which could reach £107,000) or a broken hip and wrist (up to £79,000 between medical expenses, repatriation, cancellation fees, etc) we cannot ignore the risks we’re running when we decide to flee home for a break. Regardless of how far we go or how long for, so this is an expense you just cannot do without.
So evaluate your options, do your research and purchase (or win it here with us!) some insurance before taking off – I’m sure your time away will be made all the more enjoyable without the worry of what could happen and how much more money it could cost you!
