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Are travel insurance policies worthless?

A recent report by Comparethemarket.com found a large number of travellers didn’t fully understand what they were insured for while travelling questioning the value of travel insurance. Based on this, we sent a survey to Simply Holiday Deal members asking them directly about their experience with travel insurance. The results of this survey are below. At the time we analysed results 120 respondents had completed this survey. The age and gender of these respondents are listed on the bottom of this

A recent report by Comparethemarket.com found a large number of travellers didn’t fully understand what they were insured for while travelling questioning the value of travel insurance.

Based on this, we sent a survey to Simply Holiday Deals members asking them directly about their experience with travel insurance. The results of this survey are below. At the time we analysed results 120 respondents had completed this survey. The age and gender of these respondents are listed on the bottom of this article.

When asked ‘Do you plan to purchase travel insurance on your next holiday?’ an overwhelming 76% answered yes and only 14% stated no. This question alone tells us that the majority of people do believe travel insurance is of value when travelling.

Next we wanted to learn if there were certain types of travel that individuals preferred to purchase travel insurance more vs. others. Long-haul trips and international trips ranked the highest and domestic trips ranking the lowest which tends to make sense as the further away the trip typically the more expensive and further out one might book not to mention the complexities that may occur in a medical emergency.

When asked ‘Have you purchased travel insurance in the past 3 years?’ again a large percentage, in this case 79%, stated yes. Not only are individuals intending to purchase travel insurance for future trips it appears they have been doing so previously.

Out of the participants that answered no, 34% stated that insurance was already provided by the tour operator or booking service while only 13% stated they did not see value in travel insurance all together.

Question number five asked ‘If you have purchased travel insurance in the past 3 years, whom did you purchase from?’ to learn where individuals were going to purchase their travel insurance. The vast majority, 76%, stated they purchased from an independent provider vs. direct through their tour operator.

Based on the above question, it appears people are using the Internet, specifically, search engines to find the right travel insurance provider for them.

Of those that did purchase travel insurance we asked who actually submitted a claim. Only 14% of those that purchased travel insurance ever submitted a claim, which tells us even though a large percentage of individuals are purchasing travel insurance very few ever actually need it. The key driver to continued purchase must be peace of mind for most people as they continue to purchase year over year.

The next question starts to answer our original ask, are travel insurance policies worthless?  Out of those that did submit the claim we asked if the claim actually covered their financial loss as initially anticipated when the insurance policy was purchased. Just over half stated yes with 45% stating it did not.

For those that said it did not below are some comments made from the survey respondents.

“Lots of excess items not covered, situation not covered”
“They found excuse not to pay”
“Individual excesses were more than the cost of the cancellation”
 
Overall we wondered if the public trusts travel insurance providers and believed they provide a fair and valuable service. Only 42% answered yes while 58% answered no or they were not sure.

Here at Simply Holiday Deals, we have partnered with a leader in the travel insurance category, World Nomads. World Nomads specialises in global travel insurance and serves over 140 countries making them one of the most trusted names internationally. You can read more about World Nomads and our partnership at http://simplyholidaydeals.co.uk/travel-insurance/. Also, in July of 2014 we wrote an article on ‘When to get travel insurance’ which you can find at http://simplyholidaydeals.co.uk/travel-blog/when-to-get-travel-insurance/. This article answers key questions whether you should or should not consider travel insurance and what questions you should ask your provider before purchase travel insurance.

Out of the 120 respondents approximately 60% were female with 86% of the respondents stating to be over 45 years of age.

Ultimately we believe travel insurance can be valuable but you must understand all the details and differences between providers and what is and is not part of any insurance policy. We recommend you research 3 – 5 providers before making a decision. You can start by getting a travel insurance quote from World Nomads at http://simplyholidaydeals.co.uk/travel-insurance.

 

Posted by Brian Jones

Tatiana Rokou
News Editor - TravelDailyNews Media Network | + Posts

Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.

She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.

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