Compare Travel Insurance

Archive for August, 2009

While many people in the United States and other countries are attempting to save money by taking staycations in their own areas, others are still planning their vacations as many tourist destinations are offering unheard of deals for lodging, air fare and amenities. What was over three thousand dollars ($3000) last year for a week for two to Hawaii at a three star resort including airfare can now be had for as little as one thousand dollars ($1000). While travel and lodging prices are down it is still a large investment that most people would like to protect with a policy from a travel insurance company.

How can you compare travel insurance? There are comparison sites out there and individual travel insurance companies like Columbus travel insurance and AXA travel insurance usually offer comparison between their own policies and holiday insurance quotes. InsureMyTrip.com offers comparisons of eighteen different travel insurance companies. They advertise themselves as the leading travel insurance comparison site. Over one hundred policies are available through InsureMyTrip.com and you can compare and get a travel insurance quote from one section of the website and another will give you the general overview of the available policies.

Their quote page asks a few questions and then comes up with several travel insurance policies that you can then compare. You will need to enter the cost of your trip, either total or by traveler, where youa re going, the dates of your trip, what your citizenship is, where you reside and the ages of the travelers. Once you hit quote it takes less than ten seconds to come back with your results. I got thirty one results from thirteen companies with prices ranging from $110 to $361 for package plans including medical coverage.

I picked three policies to compare - the lowest price, the highest price and one in the middle. Here is what I found. I picked the TravelLite policy from Travelex at $110, the Essential from TravelGuard for $204 and the Enhanced Extra from MH Ross for $361. Looking at the policies side by side it is much easier to see if you are getting the best coverage at the best price. For example, from the example above it is clear that the Essential policy from TravelGuard is the worst choice of the three policies and if you made your decision on the first five factors you would choose the cheapest policy, TravelLite from Trevelex at $110.

Trip cancellation and trip interruption coverages were the same for the $110 and $361 policies. Dental and accidental coverages were also the same. Why spend $251 more for only slightly greater coverage?

Columbus travel insurance operates from the United Kingdom and was chosen as Insurance Intermediary of the Year for 2008. They offer single trip travel insurance, annual insurance, backpacker, ski, business and adventure travel insurance along with special insurance for travelers over the age of sixty four (64) and medical insurance for pre existing conditions. Columbus travel insurance has been offering holiday insurance quotes since 1988 and competes with a number of travel insurance companies in the United Kingdom like Atlas Travel Insurance, Boots Travel Insurance and Tesco Travel Insurance.

Columbus Direct also offers auto and home insurance, pet insurance, hostels, hostelling international and international train travel. Columbus travel insurance offers a much easier quote method than AXA. There is no postal code or dates of birth to enter so you can get a better idea more quickly for reference sake. I put in that we were leaving from the United Kingdom on September 24, 2009 and returning on October 6, 2009 and traveling to Europe. The travel insurance quote is for a single trip policy and the price ranges are from just under twenty pounds (20) to just under eighty pounds (80) for a super annual multi trip policy for up to sixty days. The most expensive single trip policy was for just under twenty seven pounds (27).

Here is a summary for the coverage under the highest cost single trip policy from Columbus Direct. You get up to ten million (10,000,000) pounds of emergency medical coverage, five thousand (5,000) pounds in trip cancellation coverage, twenty five hundred (2500) pounds of lost baggage insurance, five hundred (500) pounds of lost cash and documents coverage, five thousand (5,000) pounds in the case your airline carrier goes bankrupt, twenty five thousand (25,000) pounds in personal accident coverage, and two million (2,000,000) pounds in personal liability coverage.

If you are adventure traveling, planning a snow sports vacation or just enjoy backpacking and camping throughout Europe, Columbus Direct can cover your trip. As with any insurance policy there are some exclusions. Using the same criteria we used for the regular travel insurance quote I clicked on the Adventure policy tab and got the same rate quotes across the board. The next step is to use the same number of travelers and dates for a ski travel insurance policy. The Super Single Ski Trip almost tripled in price for the same length of time and number of travelers to just under sixty six (66) pounds. All other coverage limits remained the same. An additional benefit is equipment loss and rental coverage.

Another added expense would be any additional sports you wanted covered while on your trip. There is a box on the regular quote to check for winter sports coverage and an additional box for other sports coverage like windsurfing, target shooting, roller blading, and about one hundred other sports. Some of these additional sports have an asterisk that states that there is no personal liability/accident coverage available on them so if you get injured you are on your own expense wise.

Columbus travel insurance is an excellent choice for reliable coverage