Travel Insurance (Boring, boring, boring)

Travel Insurance - Very, Very Boring! But absolutely essential to try to get it right.

This long rambling post is an attempt to describe some of the pitfalls of the travel insurance minefield and how you might avoid some of them using our own experience.

I'm not an insurance expert and I can't offer you any advice other than that based on our hard won experiences.
My personal opinion is that insurance of all types is a form of gambling - you give them money in the hope that 'bad things' won't happen, and when they do, the company loses and you win. And along with the old saying that you never see a poor bookmaker - you don't see many bankrupt insurance companies.
But
You can, of course, travel to many places without insurance - if you have deep pockets and are prepared to accept the risks of not having insurance.
So, lets look at what travel insurance generally covers:

• Lost, stolen or damaged items, such as luggage, passports & money
• Delays
• Cancelling all or part of your trip if you have no other options
• Accidental damage or injury caused by you (third party insurance)
• Emergencies of various types
• Medical emergencies, injuries & death (This is a bare minimum set of examples, various insurances will have different levels of cover and different sets of items they cover).

You might be prepared to 'self-insure' for lost or stolen items and to cover the cost of delays or cancellations yourself, but looking at the list, how might your finances cope with a third party claim (however rare that might be), or a medical emergency. And it's the medical side of things I'm going to major on here with a personal tale.

Looking out over the town of Inca

In the autumn of 2022 we went to Majorca on holiday with our son and his family. On the last day of the holiday we all went to a local beach. As a fairly competent swimmer my wife loved going in the sea and went paddling in the calm, warm sea among a lot of other bathers.
Although it's not entirely clear what happened, the consensus in that she fell off a ledge in the beach under the sea, leading her to fall over. Once she'd fallen over she inhaled sea water - which got into her lungs. She was rescued by the beach lifeguards who gave her first aid while waiting for an ambulance. Inhaling water is - effectively - drowning.
The ambulance took her to the major hospital at Inca where she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit once she'd been assessed by the Emergency Department.
I followed along in our hire car. The first thing I was asked when I arrived at the hospital (when I was trying to find out where she was) was "How are you going to pay?". I thankfully had both her GHIC card and the details of our travel insurance company with me - which were accepted without drama.
She was moved to a general ward fairly quickly - which was a two bed room with a door to a garden area.
I found a lovely inexpensive hotel in the centre of Inca, and the car hire company let me have an 'old banger' very cheaply.
Her stay in the hospital was extended because there was a belief that she'd had a heart attack as a result of the drowning (she hadn't - but she normally has an inverted ECG due to a congenital condition).
During her admission I had multiple phone conversations with the insurance company's medical people. They required my wife's medical notes from our GP and were in constant contact with the Spanish hospital doctors. A lot of these conversations were bizarre and confusing - at one point they were trying to insist that drowning was a pre-existing condition! (remember that term for later).
Ultimately we were taken home with a doctor to look after us throughout the journey.
The insurance company paid for the care, the medicines, the repatriation with the doctor, my hotel and car hire and we were eventually very little out of pocket. The following year we couldn't get a quote from them

The lessons we learned were various

• The unexpected happens when you least expect it
• Carry your documents with you (if only on your phone)
• Be absolutely honest about your previous illnesses & investigations - see below
• Phoning for a quote is always better than doing it online
• Do NOT trust online reviews of travel insurers - they are nearly always based on the quotation experience, not the claims experience
• Cheap insurance is cheap for a reason!

When I say be honest about your past illnesses and tests - the insurers will find out about any pre-existing conditions if you don't tell them, and they will absolutely use your omission to wriggle out of covering a claim.

Learning to use a Spanish laundrette

Having said that there are two points to be made: It's certainly possible to get travel insurance from insurers that do not care about your pre-existing conditions BUT make sure that they actually cover what you think they are covering.
On the same line, there are insurers who cover everything except pre-existing conditions - it's a gamble, but if you are healthy, never been admitted to hospital and not had any investigations, it may be a gamble worth taking (I would).

Travel Insurance bundled with a bank account or credit card is a convenient and cost-effective way of getting insurance, but they are not exempt from wanting to know about your pre-existing conditions.

It's minefield, and every traveller is wading though it with nothing but dark glasses.

A sketch of Inca town hall