In search of cheap holiday coverage

It’s sometimes the case that you hear complaints from someone that, in spite of many advertisements to the contrary, actually found it very difficult to find a cheap holiday coverage policy.

That could, of course, be due to the fact they were looking in the wrong place, but in certain cases it can sometimes be a little tricky to find cost-effective cover or indeed a policy at all. Here’s just a brief overview as to why that might be the case.

How the potential insurer sees you as a risk

In some situations, an insurer may see you to be an unacceptably high risk in terms of providing cover. The result of that might be that they decline to offer you insurance at all or that they will only do so if you pay an additional premium. There may be a number of reasons why you might find yourself in such a position:

• You are over a certain age.
• You have declared, as you are obliged to, that you are suffering from a serious existing medical condition.
• Perhaps someone in your family group suffers from such a medical problem.

Insurance is ultimately all about someone trying to assess the risks involved in offering you cover and, once they have done so, charging you an appropriate premium for sharing those risks with you.

So, if you find yourself in one of the above categories, you may have to accept the reality that you are going to have to look that bit harder for cheap holiday coverage or pay more for it (and possibly both).

The risk involved in your holiday type

Some insurers providing cheap holiday coverage will be happy to do so for what might be termed ‘standard holidays’. That might include things like two weeks on the beach or long weekends exploring a famous cultural centre. However, if you suddenly decide that you are going to go deep-sea diving or on a free fall parachuting course, their perception of the risks involved just might change! In such circumstances, you will need to find a provider who specialises in sporting types of cover and, in extreme cases, those who are willing to accept very high-risk activities. You may have little or no alternative but to spend a lot of time searching to find a policy that is suitable for you if you are planning to do something that is highly unusual and potentially quite dangerous.

The risks involved in your destination

It would be wonderful if people could travel anywhere on the planet and find upon arrival that the environment was largely safe and stable. Unfortunately, the world just isn’t like that. There are countries or parts of countries where, for one reason or another, tourism or business travel is risky and the environment best regarded as being dangerous. As such, it might be perfectly understandable that, if you are travelling to such a locality, standard travel insurance might not cover you.

Once again, if you are travelling to an area where there are severe risks for your personal safety, you may need to accept that cheap holiday coverage might not be available and you may be forced to look for specialist insurance provisions.

Patrick Chong is the Managing Director of Insuremore. We provide cheap holiday coverage with a range of policies including single-trip, multi-trip and family insurance. For all your travel cover needs, Insuremore can help you in the quickest and most cost-efficient way.

Writer and Online Marketing Manager in London.