World First Travel Insurance Blog

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office today released their annual British Behaviour Abroad report saying rather wearily that we’re “still” getting into trouble abroad like some kind of exasperated parent. And what’s more, all that trouble is avoidable. Top of the list of reasons why people get into scrapes is the high numbers of drink and drug related arrests. Embassies also helped many people stranded by the problems with volcanic ash. But there are far more quite mundane reasons. Here’s a list of them. (more…)

A lot of people fantasise about long-term travel and just giving it all up and going away.  Most of them never manage it,  something or someone always  seems to conspire to prevent it happening. But for the lucky few, gap years can be an incredibly enriching and even life-changing experience.

However much we’d like to just throw everything up in the air on a whim it wouldn’t be a good idea. A minimum amount of planning is required to prevent a dream experience turning into a nightmare. (more…)

The new World First web site is to be launched this weekend. It marks the completion of first stage of a new era for us with a new emphasis on building our reputation across the Internet with a variety of social media outlets, this blog being one of the main ones.

Insurance doesn’t have a very good reputation. Insurers are only about one rung up on the interesting chain from accountants. But there’s more to us than you might think. Travel insurance is part of the travel industry. That’s already more interesting isn’t it? So we’re going to be talking about the travel industry, not just insurance. (more…)

It’s official: 60 is the new 40, 70 is the new 50 and – well you get the picture.  If the silver surfer phenomenon continues, we will all be travelling well into our 90^th year, as long as we can afford it that is.

The opportunities for travel post retirement are so much greater these days, whether it is a short hop for a city break or an extended visit to friends and family on the other side of the world.  Most of us have so much more time to live out our travelling dreams later in our lives.

No kids (unless you are staying with them!), no job to return to, no limits on what we can do. Right? Well, at World First Travel Insurance that’s what we believe. (more…)

Many of you have already booked or will be booking beach holidays for the summer. For the vast majority, everything will fine and you’ll come back relaxed and ready to go. We’ve all seen the seaside rescue programmes on TV though and they act as a reminder that the beach and the sea do present some dangers. Here’s a guide how to how to stay safe. Most of it is common sense, but these things need to be said.

Avoid sunburn

No amount of information about the dangers of over-exposure to the sun seems to prevent us from flocking to the beach to fry all day long and come away looking like a ripe lobster (I know, lobsters can’t be ripe, but you get the image). Sitting on the beach all day is fine, but protect yourself from UVA and UVB rays with factor 20+ water-proof sunblock. Avoid the sun at the warmest times of the day between 11 and 3. Believe me, even at 4 in the afternoon, a beach on the Mediterranean can be a pretty warm place. And don’t forget your hat (do I sound like your mother? Unfortunately she was right). (more…)

That’s a bit of a mouthful isn’t it? E111 forms were obtained from the Post Office, you got them to cover medical expenses when you went to Europe. Or so you thought anyway. I can only ever remember getting one for school trips like when my daughter went to Italy. But let’s face it, they were an inconvenience and even though everyone knew about them, nobody bothered to get them.

Well now, they are no more, they’ve been replaced by the European Health Insurance Card. This entitles you to medical treatment at reduced cost or sometimes free when you visit a European Union (EU) country* or Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland temporarily. In practical terms, you get the same public health service treatment as locals would get. And there’s the rub. Not all public health coverage is the same and just because it says Health Insurance doesn’t make it the same as a Health Insurance policy you’d buy from an insurer. (more…)

There is a widely held idea that once you get beyond a certain age, you won’t be able to get travel insurance any more. Just like the idea that life insurance companies get jittery when you have anything that’s even remotely likely to affect your ability to live a full and active life. While this is true to some extent – actuaries will always be actuaries – there have been significant changes in the travel insurance industry recently that mean that even if your ticker is a bit dodgy, someone will trust you to go away and not expire before you get back. (more…)

Benny was really happy. He’d just come away from the Big Travel Agent in the High Street after booking his cruise with the Big Tour Operator. He was going to take his wife on a once in a lifetime cruise around the Caribbean. Everything was included, the entertainment, the meals and even a couple of excursions. He’d got his eye on trying some scuba diving for the first time in his life. His wife was looking forward to playing some tennis on the ship’s deck but was wondering how that was done without losing a lot of wayward balls in the sea.

Later that evening, he took a closer look at the documents. He had a particular look at the invoice. There were a lot of figures on it and, to be honest, he didn’t understand them all. One however did jump out. Insurance £103.34. He was flabbergasted. That was not much less than he’d paid to insure his car for a whole year! (more…)

Travel insurance, like any other insurance, is always too expensive until you need it. Then, it miraculously turns into something of a shrewd investment. There seems to be a lot of mystery around this type of insurance and many people don’t bother with it at all thinking they’ll be covered by anything from their home insurance, some product provided by their bank or just by sheer luck or divine intervention. So what does this mysterious animal actually cover? Obviously specific policies and conditions vary greatly, but here’s a short list of the main features. (more…)

Never mind police constables and teachers getting younger by the day, it seems that now the population on the snow slopes is getting older and older. Increased life expectancy and improved pensions have meant that baby boomers that have reached the age of retirement are increasingly unwilling to sit in front of the fire waiting for the grim reaper to come along to tell them there time’s up.

So, do you fancy a slide down the piste for the first time but you’re more enthusiastic about the après-ski than the activity that precedes it? Here’s a few tips to help you: (more…)