If you’re like ninety percent of the population, when you book a holiday on line, you won’t bother to read the Terms and Conditions before ticking them to say you have!
If you bothered to read them, you’d probably realise that they advise you to do something that probably another ninety percent of the population never do either – take out travel insurance.
It’s hard enough getting people to take insurance out for their foreign holiday but it’s practically impossible for breaks away in their own country.
Julian and I are lucky – our travel insurance comes free as part of a bank account (though we do pay for this the benefits outweigh the cost). As we don’t partake in dangerous sports whilst on holiday we’re fully covered, in the UK and abroad.
I’ve banged on about this before so many of you will know I lost a whole holiday in Gran Canaria after badly cutting my leg a few years ago and spending the entire week in hospital. Extra charges were involved in transporting me to the hospital as well as for the transport home to the UK. Luckily, our insurance covered everything and apart from a very boring week in a hospital where no-one spoke English and a big scar, I had nothing to worry about.
If you don’t have insurance – think of it as an investment. It’s a highly competitive market so it’s often less than £20 for an annual policy and if something happens on holiday, it could cost you dearly.
A few weeks ago we had a huge snowfall across the UK which bought it to a standstill. All our guests cancelled. Luckily we were able to rebook them all for the coming couple of weeks but there’s no guarantee we can move bookings. If something unforeseen happens like a family tragedy, it may be too late for us to resell the room and rather than loose income as a small business, we are forced to charge in full as per our cancellation terms. Of course in times of tragedy, most people would have more important things on their minds anyway but it’s surprising how many people have relatives die or fall ill themselves, then make a miraculous recovery as soon as they realise they will lose money by cancelling. My standard answer would be to claim on your insurance, but you can only do this if firstly you have some, and secondly you were telling the truth! We’re always happy to provide proof of the cancellation charge to your insurance company.
This last weekend, a guest of ours sadly slipped and fell whilst out for the day in Dartmouth. She had to attend our local Torbay Hospital and ended up having to stay in for an operation having broken her ankle in three places.
Hopefully they have insurance and her husband will be able to claim for the extra costs involved with staying down here whilst she recovers from the operation before being moved back home. If they don’t have insurance then the costs can soon mount. Accommodation, meals out and day to day expenses, transport to and from the hospital, items for the patient, extra dog kennel charges, it goes on and on.
You never know what might be round the corner so please do heed my warning and get yourselves some travel insurance. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Then if the worst were to happen, at least you only need worry about the situation in hand and not have money worries.