Cheap Travel Insurance Guide from Cheap.co.uk

When you head off on your holidays in the next year or so I can imagine a fair few of you will not read the small print fully, assuming you’re fully covered for everything. This may not seem like a big deal at the time but it could leave you seriously out of pocket if you become injured or something valuable is stolen. By signing or agreeing to the terms and conditions you acknowledge that you have read the small print - saying you didn’t read it, so you didn’t know, isn’t going to cover your back.

Cheap.co.uk is a responsible travel comparison site offering its users access to cheap holiday insurance. As a responsible website Cheap.co.uk wants to help all its potential users to the best of its ability, that’s why we’ve created this helpful guide to understanding some of the small print.

Claim No.1: Stolen Items

It’s instinct to take good care of your possession while on holiday because you are naturally cautious of a new environment - this is exactly what an insurer will expect. This means that if you have an item stolen from you because of your own negligence then your insurer has the right to refuse a pay-out

The finer details will obviously be in your policy documents but it is always safe to assume that you shouldn’t leave any expensive items in your room or within view of a window. Anything that has significant value should be on your person or locked up in a safe - these items include things like cameras, iPods and mobile phones.

Claim No.2: Accidents

Your insurer will also assume that you are going to take care of yourself while on holiday, doing something that puts you in harm’s way may void any right to a pay-out. Make sure you check with your insurer if you’re covered when doing Winter sports extreme sports or something with animals.

A big no-no to a lot of insurers is alcohol. If you are drinking responsibly then you will be ok but if you become intoxicated then you put yourself in a position where you could harm yourself or someone else. You have not taken a reasonable step to keep yourself out of harm’s way. You will not be covered by your travel insurance.

Claim No. 3: Multiple claims and Multiple Excess

Any travel insurance policy will the usual ‘standard excess’, but the small print to your travel insurance may say that this applied to each traveller on your insurance policy. So, if you have four people travelling on a ‘standard excess’ of £50 and all your luggage is stolen, unfortunately it would quadruple if you tried to claim. The result would be that you would have to pay the first £200 and not the first £50.

To make matters worse it may also be in your small print that each item damaged in a single event is subject to different insurance claims, and therefore you have to pay the excess each time. An example would be where if in the horrible event you are mugged you manage to grab your wallet momentarily but drop your phone, you will have to claim separately for the stolen wallet and the dropped phone.

Overall Top Tip: Make sure when buying any travel insurance you read all the small print and then have a nice holiday!