An accepted cost of international travel is insurance yet, as regular travellers will be aware, most of the time, this is wasted money.
Do bear these points in mind as the end of COVID nears and international travel again beckons.
Invariably, the reason people buy travel insurance is to ensure peace of mind but, usually, if it comes to it, your travel insurer will do everything in their power to avoid covering the cost of your travel mishap.
Regarding figures, by the time your travel agent has covered all aspects of travel insurance – flight, possessions, accommodation, business, transit, health/injury – you are likely looking at a cost of up to $200.
Travel insurance is not cheap and – as documented in an earlier publication – personally, at that time having been on three international trips thus paid over $500 in insurance fees, when I did attempt to make a claim on a lost/stolen/long-story/look-it-up-if-you’re-that-into-it – tim-walkers-vietnam-supplement – rather expensive piece of jewellery, I had the claim basically laughed off, with the shitheads at Covermore Insurance pointing out that, in the small print, it is clearly stated that their policy covers a maximum of $500 for personal loss, anyway.
More recently, I was stranded in Southeast Asia while a Coronavirus pandemic flourished around the world; first my return flight worth $1700 was cancelled then, after paying for a backup flight – twice – that too, was cancelled. As that money was not returned to me by the cancelling companies (now upwards of $4000), when another flight did come up, simply, I had no money left to pay for it.
I wasn’t worried, I knew I was covered, I knew I’d get that money back eventually; like a sucker, I had again taken out full travel insurance.
Yeah, covered, nice one; turns out the only group of people who ‘covered’ me in that predicament was my adoptive Vietnamese family (I would later discover that, again in the small print, travel insurance providers stipulate that they will ‘not cover flight disruptions resulting from epidemics or other widespread illness’), my glorious Vietnamese family actually donated the cash to get me home.
In essence, over the years having invested somewhere close to $700 in the sham that is travel insurance, even after having a couple of potential claims, travel insurance has given me nothing.
No, sorry, that’s not right, of course, it has afforded me that fabled ‘peace of mind’ that travellers so desire; though hollow as a traveller’s peace of mind may be when that ‘peace’ is provided by a travel insurance company, it seems, we will pay a lot for it.
Article by Tim Walker
Edited by Ian Shearer
Photography by Wusta Thyme