Just over a month ago, my boyfriend and I decided to spend our 5th wedding anniversary in the beautiful city of Edinburgh. We live in Dorset, so we didn't want to spend the whole time travelling. We chose to fly there to make the trip easier on ourselves, and a travel agent helped us plan our week-long trip. Imagine my surprise when the quote for travel insurance showed that it would cost me an extra GBP27.50. We weren't going to Pittsburgh; we were only going to Edinburgh.
I was offended that they thought we were so stupid to get travel insurance for a trip within the UK. Edinburgh has hospitals, and it's not all that far away. But afterward, over a cup of hot chocolate, I thought about it some more.
Disasters can happen on vacation anywhere, not just abroad, so I made a list of things that could go wrong:
- Anything could happen to our luggage because airlines always lose suitcases.
- Flights are always late and sometimes have to be cancelled. On top of the trouble, we might have to find a place to stay the night near the airport.
- My grandfather has been sick lately, and I wouldn't be able to go on vacation if he suddenly got worse. The trip would have to be cancelled once more.
- If one of us gets sick before we leave, we would have to call off the trip. We couldn't get our money back for the flights or the hotel, so we had to pay.
- My boyfriend gave me a great digital camera as a gift, but it would be very expensive to replace if I lost it.
- We could both be called to serve on a jury at any time.
But wait, what about our Home and Contents insurance? I think that would cover us if we lost our bags or my camera while I was in the UK. I found the policy and looked over the fine print. No luck. Only "personal possessions" that were listed on the policy counted, so everything in the luggage wouldn't be covered, and I'd have to call to add the camera to the policy.
I also remembered that our Home and Contents policy gave us a discount for not making a claim for more than 4 years. If we had to make a claim, we would lose the discount for not making any claims. Our already high premiums of GBP305 a year would go through the roof after that. I realised I should look for a cheaper Home & Contents policy when it was time to renew, and I promised myself I would do so in the future.
So far, the research I've done has led me to realise that GBP27.50 for a travel policy isn't too bad.
I've never been one to rest on my past achievements. Even though I thought travel insurance was a good idea, that didn't mean I was willing to pay the travel agent's price.
I looked for more quotes online. The first two or three sites I looked at didn't have what I was looking for, but 10 minutes later, I found what I was looking for. I found a policy for a single trip to the UK that was about GBP10 cheaper than what the travel agent quoted.
I read the fine print. There was no point in signing up if I didn't know everything. I was glad to see that all of the points I had written down had been made.
Now let's talk about the rules. Was it all too good to be true? No need to worry, phew. We wouldn't be covered if the trip was less than 25 miles from our home or lasted less than 2 nights. Not a big deal. The only problem was that if we needed to make a claim, we would have to pay the GBP30. All right.
I bought travel insurance right away because I was happy with the policy I found and had decided that we did need it after all.
