The Importance of having adequate Travel Insurance

As a traveller, I am a great advocate of ensuring you are prepared for every trip, including remembering the importance of having adequate travel insurance. I can’t tell you how often I have met travellers who don’t believe in taking out travel insurance and consider it a waste of money. Unfortunately for them, I more often than not regale them with my recent woes on a trip my besties and I took to Turkey when the UK air traffic control was ‘out of commission’ (read jacked) for one day and the UK airspace all of a sudden were sitting ducks.

The great year of 2020, followed by 2023, taught us (me, mostly) the importance of having adequate travel insurance. Back in 2018 I shared an article of ‘the pros and cons of travel insurance’ and whilst I stand by every word in that article, reading it back now it makes me think it was written with a little superficiality in that at that time, I truly hadn’t had an event in my travel experience that would reinforce the need for having adequate travel insurance with every {.} single {.} trip you take. In this article, I aim to share first a recent experience that reinforced the message about the importance of having adequate travel insurance and secondly I will re-highlight the pros of travel insurance only since I can personally attest to its importance and as we all start travelling for warmer climates this year, I hope we remember them.

*Disclosure – this is a collaborative post, all opinions shared are my own and based on my own experience.

The Importance of having Adequate Travel Insurance

I don’t think I need to remind anyone about 2020 and what that year did to people and families and how many found out they didn’t have ‘adequate insurance cover’ during the most devastating time of their lives. We often look back at that year as one of the worst in recent history, and with good reason, but that’s not the focus of today’s article, Hence, I will only regale you with my most recent experience that reminded me of the importance of having adequate travel insurance.

2023 was a great year for my besties and me; it was the year we travelled more than any other time in the 14+ years we had known each other. We spent more time with each other than our respective families, but I digress. In August 2023, we decided to travel to Turkey for the first time. You see, as frequent travellers, we love nothing more than pre-booking our travels, and the Turkey trip was no different. We had booked via a ‘holiday provider’ and all that was left was to fly to Turkey and enjoy the sun, drinks and culture. Well, let’s just say, air traffic control and EasyJet had a different plan for us. Everything started smoothly; we boarded the flight and were then stuck on the runway for 3hrs before we were told we couldn’t fly.

As our trip was only partially refundable, we opted to find a different way to travel to Turkey. We found flights leaving from Stansted (we were at Gatwick) for the next morning. Thanks to the chaos this issue created, airlines decided it was the perfect opportunity for them to capitalise on it, and flight prices increased exponentially. Lord knows they were testing my gangster, but this trip had to happen. We booked the new flights and booked a hotel at the airport, and we decided that we would eat then trek from London Gatwick to London Stansted (if you know, you know) and a trek it was.

The issue persisted for the entirety of our trip away, which meant on return, we faced many cancellations, so we ended up flying from Turkey to Germany, grabbed a train to Paris (there was another issue there, and we had to spend a night in Paris), then grabbed EuroStar to London Pancreas. Once in London, we had to trek back to London Gatwick to collect our vehicles since we had parked where we were initially intended to fly to and from.

The whole ordeal cost us over £5000 and now the challenge of claiming this from EasyJet begun.

We take out travel insurance for the ‘unprecedented events’ should they occur, NOT that they will, but in the unfortunate event that they do, and I know for some people this sounds like a waste. To me, it’s a necessary part of having an enjoyable trip because I didn’t just buy travel insurance, I bought a PEACE OF MIND. EasyJet reimbursed all the travelling costs but not the rest, which they informed us we had to try to get from our insurance companies. This was an ordeal in itself, but that day we learned the importance of having adequate travel insurance because with each of us having different insurances, we realised some insurances either covered the ordeal or maybe only a small part. Now imagine if you then had a medical emergency (like cancer) on top of that only to discover your insurance doesn’t quite cover that part? It truly highlighted for us *the need for travel insurance with cancer and other medical conditions. That experience has taught me never to leave anything, especially when travelling, to chance.

The Pros of Travel Insurance

I hope I still don’t need to convince you of the importance, especially after 2020 (plus my own 2023 ordeal), but if I need to, see below a couple of reasons.

• Peace of mind for when the unfortunate happens
• Ability to cancel at short notice and get your monies back
• Personal injury or even death (reduces the financial burden on the family)
• Medical emergencies
• Lost or even stolen items whilst travelling

What else would you add to my list above? Have you ever had to use your travel insurance due to an unfortunate event whilst travelling?