Overseas Travel Insurance

Now you’ve started looking around for overseas travel insurance, you may be starting to wonder what in the world you’re looking for? You’ve got a focus on where you’re going and for how long – but are you really sure what you’ll be doing when you get there? You may surprise yourself. You may decide to attempt challenges you would never have done at ‘home’ and you may come across locations and choices even the travel books didn’t mention.

Adventure travel overseas is the buzz thing to do but the idea of ‘adventure’ can vary. For some, world wide travel just must centre around every hot spot, exotic location, never-sleep city on the planet. Others only like to go where the locals go, eat and sleep local and relate local, all at a very grass roots level. Others go for museums and antiquities, others to challenge mountains, rivers and deserts. There’s no right or wrong – just do what you do and if you decide to challenge yourself, then go for it.

However, when it comes to overseas travel health insurance – yep – there are lines of right or wrong. They’re called on one side, ‘reliable cover’ and on the other side, ‘you’re on your own loophole cover’.  Cheap overseas travel insurance is fabulous and really helps the budget, but a cheap insurance policy that’s full of ‘yes, but’ qualifications could potentially leave you thousands out of pocket and even endanger your life if the emergency cover is not comprehensive enough.

And you don’t have to be travelling anywhere dangerous or doing anything extreme. It can sometimes be the ‘silly little things’ that can cause an injury. You’re prepared and on the watch when you’re canyon swinging, kayaking or heli skiing, but walking down the street you’re usually pretty relaxed. Little international differences like forgetting the closest traffic is coming from the opposite direction i.e. from the left and not the right, not noticing that the curbing in some cities is way higher than we have in Australia, and over you go, or that some cities don’t always cover their manholes – woops!!

So – don’t just accept the first insurance quotes you get. Really read into the policy details – they should be available for down loading or viewing on all discount travel insurance web sites. Read the document carefully, and really know what you’re getting before purchasing.

Overseas travel insurance is not a standard product, and a bit of looking around will show this clearly. Empower yourself with knowledge, then get the best.

• If you’re travelling through one of the ‘don’t drink the water’ countries, remember that the ice in your drink may have been frozen from that very same water. If in doubt, give the ice cubes a miss.
• Rather than always buying water bottled in plastic, check out the possibility of ‘making’ your own. If you’re staying where you have facilities to boil water in a saucepan then boil the local water for 10 minutes, cool and take with you in your own water bottle.
• Don’t wash in someone’s drinking water. It may look like a pristine steam to you but where is the nearest village and where do they draw their water from?