Regardless of where you go, and no matter how 'fun' your destination is described in the brochure, you will still be exposed to certain risks. And if you're going with your loved ones, the least you can do is purchase good family holiday insurance coverage. But what about those who insist that they can live without it? The following are just three grave mistakes they are committing. Never Gauge the Future Based on the Past There are those who tend to base their decisions on how they may have fared in the past without any protection. This attitude is often found in the older 'baby boomer' generation-those who have been travelling since before credit cards and mobile phones existed and who would often swear by the sheer uselessness of getting a family holiday insurance coverage. After all, if they have survived the past decades without protection, then there's no reason they will suddenly be in danger, right? The thing with today's circumstances is that we now know the kind of risk we are exposed to every single day. What if you have a heart attack while in California, and you're sent to the ICU of a local hospital? You can't even begin to describe the expense-most likely in the hundreds of thousands of dollars-which you could have avoided with a proper coverage. You were younger, perhaps luckier in the past; today you're at the mercy of a lot of risks, so make your choices wisely. Consuming Alcohol When you and your family are on holiday, it's almost always a given that at a certain point during your travel you may partake in some social drinking. You have to keep in mind that even if you have purchased what seems like an ironclad, airtight family holiday insurance, certain unfortunate events that are otherwise covered by the policy become exclusions once the presence of alcohol is established. For example, road accidents are usually covered, but if you cause the said accident because you have consumed two full glasses of that amazing Spanish wine, suddenly the mishap is excluded and you won't be able to make a claim. Policies vary wildly-just check the fine print-but some apply the exclusion principle regardless of the amount of alcohol consumed, while there are those that allow a certain threshold. Regardless, the point is simple: just because you have a policy, don't suddenly adopt a devil-may-care attitude. Ignoring the Numbers Getting a family holiday insurance coverage boils down to the balance of numbers: the money we have to pay for services (medical and other) when things do not go as expected. The UK's Foreign Office travel advice could not be more explicit when it says never travel without a good policy. For illustrative purposes, if something serious happens to you on the US east coast and you need an air ambulance, that can set you back by as much as £45,000, and as much as £20,000 for a scheduled flight, stretcher and doctor escort from Australia. And those are only the 'milder' numbers. Surely, if you know the potentially high cost of hospital treatment and compare it with the incredibly low price of most decent policies, there should never be any argument? 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.
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