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…)

What with volcanic ash and airline strikes, holiday cancellation insurance has been in the news quite a lot recently, and not always in a positive light. Well, we can’t actually guarantee to pay out every time but maybe we have the next best thing.

World First has just launched two new cancellation policies that will cover you in almost any scenario you could imagine. (more…)

Actuaries are a conservative bunch. It’s said that they’re the ones that found accounting and insurance a little too exciting. They spend their days among tables and charts that they use to calculate the risk of you and me falling under a bus before giving us life insurance. They spend their lives calculating whether that risk is worth taking. They’re the ones, like the man in the Treasury that holds the purse strings, that have to say “no”. They must have (more…)

Sounds great doesn’t it? I just renewed my home insurance with Direct Line (yes, I will name them, hello Google, I’m here!). The house insurance (more Google attracting) deal is quite good. It includes buildings and contents as you’d expect with a reasonable level of cover, I added accidental damage because I can never be sure what stupid things I’ll do at home. I haven’t yet put by foot through the ceiling as it says in the documents but I wouldn’t be surprised if I did. I did put it through a ceramic cooker top a few years ago.

Then there’s legal support like most policies these days, they cover personal possessions outside the home and they’ll pay my salary while I’m on jury service. But what really caught my eye was the travel insurance. All for 250 quid a year. I know a little about travel insurance, I thought, I’ll have a look at that. (more…)

I have a confession to make. I was chatting to Martin Rothwell this morning and I told him that I have a (well, two in fact) pre-existing medical conditions.

Well that’s a surprise

To be honest, I didn’t even realise the fact – I’ve been taking blood pressure pills for more than 20 years and they are just part of my life. (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…)

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…)

Travelling off-piste is very much in vogue these days. You can do some pretty extreme things in the pursuit of pleasure like flying a MiG jet over Moscow, swimming with sharks or going to the edge of space where the sky above you is black and below you is blue.

You don’t have to go that far though, thrills are still to be found on mountain sides, down fast torrents, on the snow of in the sea. And then there’s all the more exotic places you can go without placing yourself in sporting danger. A recent survey by ABTA has highlighted a trend towards visiting former war zones. (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…)

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…)