Do I really need UK Travel Insurance

When you think of why you'd need travel insurance you probably get images of broken legs whilst skiing, Car rental mishaps in the Mediterranean and eating some dodgy shrimp. You wouldn't normally associate a weekend break within the UK as somewhere you'd need travel insurance. But the truth is that wherever you go in the UK you are still going to need travel insurance, just not in the way you'd normally expect. Since you'll still be in the UK you won't be claiming against your life insurance if you get injured, that's what health insurance is for.

The situations you'd need to claim against travel insurance would normally be the occasions where you have to cancel your holiday or cut it short. One such situation could be that you go on holiday for two weeks, when halfway through you injure yourself meaning you have to go to the hospital, subsequently cutting your holiday short. Aside from the medical costs you could end up being lumbered with charges for your accommodation even though you're stuck in a hospital bed and not even at the hotel anymore!

This is unfortunate but hotels are well within their rights to charge you as otherwise they could have filled that booking with someone else. Luckily your travel insurance policy covers events such as these and can help regain most of the expenses which normally would be lost.

It's also becoming more popular for people to take advantage of cheap domestic flights and taking the plane as opposed to a long and winding road trip, so if you were to cancel your holiday even due to bereavement then normally you'd be left out of pocket, travel insurance covers this too fortunately. This would also cover lost luggage as even with domestic flights it's not unknown for your bags to disappear off the face of the earth!

Invariably whilst you're away you'll be taking a camera with you, and in this day and age probably a mobile phone or MP3 player too, if you were to lose or damage it while on holiday then you may not be able to afford a replacement out of your own money.

So as you can see there are plenty of occasions where you'd need travel insurance, no matter where you go, be it abroad or the other side of the country. If you have any doubts or questions it would be best to check with your current travel insurance company or a travel agent as they'd be best to advise on the level of cover for your chosen destination, you should also familiarise yourself with your insurance emergency claims line which are normally open 24 hours, 365 days a year

by Andy Adams