Hi All
I am looking to buy our travel insurance ASAP but I am really unsure who to go with. The comparison sites are not very good for backpacker insurance and I am looking for 13 months. Also, I require search and rescue for up to approx 6000m as we plan to trek to Everest base camp. I found one with a company called
ACE UK, their policy was good but did not cover search and rescue over 4500m. The cost of that was just under £200 each.
What company did you go with?
If you had to claim, was it easy?
How much did you spend on your policy?
Thanks
Reply to this Have you looked at World Nomads. There is a link to it through Travelblog
here
The benefits of it are that it covers you for more 'extreme' activities (they have a list), it lasts for as long as you want, you can extend it while on your trip if you decide to stay longer and you can make a claim outside your home country.
It is more expensive than some other backpacker policies, but if you look at the smallprint of the cheaper ones, you are often not covered for things that you need to be covered for.
Reply to this As muc has I would love to go with world nomads, as their policy does seem one of the best, my quote is over £1000, so not a possability. Is that who you use?
Reply to this I've used ACE for all my long trips as they have been consistently the cheapest by far. However I've never had to claim from them ...
Reply to this Interesting Jabe. I think they look great but for that 1500 missing meters.
InsureandGo come a close second but are a wee bit dearer but they cover upto 6000m.
I am amazed with all the travelling you have done, that you have never had to claim. I hope I am that lucky too!
[Edited: 2011 Jul 07 16:01 - Tina and Rob:122956 ]
Reply to this You could always try contacting ACE to see what extra they would charge to cover Everest Base Camp. If you mention the cheapest you've found elsewhere, that might motivate them to undercut that price.
I took out travel insurance pretty much just in case of medical issues - medical claims are the largest category of travel insurance claims (numerically and financially), and are certainly worth insuring against because treatment/evacuation costs can rapidly escalate. I was never travelling with enough cash or valuable luggage to make me think that insuring my stuff was worthwhile (lost/stolen money/luggage is the second biggest category). The one occasion where I might have wanted to claim was when I was mugged, but I "only" lost $50, would have had to go through the palaver of getting a police report in order to even attempt to claim - and anyway I had ACE's budget insurance which doesn't cover monetary losses :-)
I'd actually thought that claims were quite rare but, just looking on the web, it appears that annually there are more than half a million medical claims on travel insurance from UK travellers, and about 400,000 for lost/stolen baggage. I don't know what % of those claims are actually paid out, but I'm beginning to think now that I've had something of a charmed life ...
Reply to this I did call ACE and they were, unfortunately, quite unhelpful. I had originally sent them an email asking about covering EBC and was emailed back asking to call them, so I thought there was hope but when I called I was given a straight forward no. Not sure why they couldn't just say that in the email.
I don't think it would be worth the hassle of claiming for possesions as we won't be carrying too much that we would consider too expensive, although we will have a netbook and a camera. My main issue is medical and ensuring search and rescue up to 5600m.
Reply to this Hi Tina,
Are you doing the EBC trek with a company? They could probably supply you with a list of insurers that other people have used on the same trek.
Reply to this Hi Guys
Thanks for all your responses although more answeres may help others so keep it up.
Thought I should let you know that I got our tavel insurance with
InsureandGo . After reading the policy wording of MANY companies (boring) I found that they suited our needs and were a decent price at £470 for both of us for 13 months (we doubled our excess). For me, making sure we would get rescued if anything were to go wrong on the EBC trek and that there was plenty cover for medical was important. Personal possesions not so important. The excess on these are usually quite high anyway and make it pointless claiming alot of the time. I compared their policy wording to World Nomads, who seem to be the best of the lot but also the most expensive and I seen very little difference.
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