Is Family Holiday Insurance a Necessity?

With the exception of perhaps a relatively small number of affluent holidaymakers, it’s probably fair to say that most families taking their annual break will be looking closely at their spending. What that will highlight, almost inevitably, is the cost of family holiday insurance.

To cover, or not to cover

That is just a short step away from asking the question as to whether such cover is really necessary. Of course, there can’t really be a definitive answer to such a question. If your trip goes perfectly routinely and you return home without a mishap, then your expenditure on that policy might seem to have been wasted. On the other hand, your policy might be all that keeps you from financial ruin if things do go wrong, or perhaps if you find yourself in the appalling position of needing medical treatment but are unable to obtain it because you can’t pay for it.

So, the basic decision you face in the context of purchasing family holiday insurance for a trip away is no different to that of, say, household contents or an unemployment protection policy. You may never need such things, but the question you need to ask is just what you would do if the worst happened and you didn’t have such cover in place?

If you are considering family holiday insurance but are also very cost conscious, there are a few things that you can do in order to potentially reduce your costs. They might include:• making sure that you shop around for a quotation;• selecting a basic as opposed to an all-bells-and-whistles type of policy;• looking at options for annual cover if you plan to travel several times during the year as a group;• avoiding certain high-risk destinations that might involve higher premiums in order to provide appropriate cover.

As part of making your decision, it is important that you don’t invest any great hopes in British embassy assistance in situations where you have decided against such cover.British embassies and consulates overseas exist for a number of reasons, including that of providing emergency assistance to British subjects if they get into trouble. What they are not there to do is to provide financial assistance and back up in situations where your position is not critical, and you are merely financially embarrassed because you failed to take out an appropriate policy.

So, for example, if your luggage has been stolen with all of your clothes in it, don’t expect the local British embassy to go out and buy you an entirely new wardrobe. If you don’t have appropriate policy, you’ll end up staying in the clothes you stand in or need to buy new ones out of your own pocket!

So, is family holiday insurance really worth it? Ultimately the decision must rest with you, but it might be sensible to think carefully about the potentially serious consequences that might arise if you decide to do without it.

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