Why Get Travel Insurance?

A feature article by an Alumbo member, Mar 10, 2008         

Summary: When you have friends coming back from overseas without incident, you might start to wonder, why get travel insurance. Here's a few good reasons.

 
When you have friends coming back from overseas without incident, you might start to wonder, why get travel insurance. Here’s a few good reasons.
Andrea (not her real name) booked a cruise with a group of friends. A few days before sailing her mother was hospitalised. Naturally, Andrea cancelled the trip, but was within the 7-day ‘it’s too late to cancel now’ period. Nothing to do with Andrea, totally out of her control, but she lost the full cost of her cruise. Had she taken out travel insurance including trip cancellation at time of booking, she would have been covered.
An experienced Aussie surfer, we’ll call him Mark, headed to the U.S. to catch a few waves. He only caught one. His injuries were critical enough to result in a $290,000 hospital bill plus repatriation home. Latest cost estimates for medical repatriation from the U.S. range around $80,000 to $100,000. In this case he had overseas travel insurance and all his expenses were paid.
You don’t have to go to high risk countries or take on high risk activities, as Andrea proved you don’t even have to leave home, to benefit from travel insurance. A quick look on the government travel site, smartraveller.com.au is a real education. As well as stating the obvious, that those who can’t afford travel insurance can’t afford to travel, the site gives some eye-opening statistics.
Remembering these stats probably need updating - each year the department say they handle over 20,000 incidents helping Aussies who have found themselves in trouble when travelling overseas through sickness, accident or theft: over 700 hospitalisations, over 600 deaths, over 100 evacuations.

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Why Do Some Travellers Skip Buying Insurance? We all know we need travel insurance, so why do an estimated 30% of travellers still travel overseas with either no cover or too little.
Online travel insurance company, iTrek.com.au, say they suspect it’s largely out of the belief that bad things happen to other people, and the mistaken belief that travel insurance is too expensive.
Rather, iTrek say, this is a growing market and most companies have put together highly competitive packages sometimes targeting areas of travel such as Europe and the UK or Asia and sometimes targeting specific financial markets such as backpackers, meaning you can purchase from budget travel insurance upward. But, iTrek advise to definitely purchase direct from the insurer to avoid paying middleman commissions and to buy insurance online to pick up the best low cost travel insurance deals.
Bottom-line answer to, “Why get travel insurance?” – Because we live in the real world.
Author Bio: Paul Stanley is marketing Manager at iTrek, leaders in discount travel insurance for backpackers and adventure travellers. Get your cancellation insurance.

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