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…)

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…)

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…)

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…)