Travel Insurance Traps

Travelling is back, bigger and better than ever. Well, the bills are bigger… better is all relative. Relative to not being able to travel at all it’s definitely better. Something nobody wants to think about when planning a big adventure is Travel Insurance… its expensive, and unless something actually goes wrong you never really know what you are getting.

A couple of important things to note regarding travel insurance though, especially if you are thinking your camera gear and laptop are covered in the standard policy.

That pesky per item limit

• There is always a per item limit for insured personal affects, usually around AU$2,000.  If you have a $6,000 MacBook Pro this is obviously not covered….
• There is also usually an age limit on computers, and it’s usually not very old, around 3 years. Any older and it’s not covered at all… Check your insurers PDS for details.
• The per item limit also applies to camera gear, but not how you may think. A camera with multiple lenses (attached or otherwise), even multiple camera bodies, plus tripods and other accessories are all classed collectively as one item…  Add up the real cost of your camera plus all the lenses, extra batteries, camera bag, filters, memory cards etc… that’s all considered as one item and insured as such… Usually with a limit of about $2,000… for all of it.

Some policies allow you to separately list and insure specific items, for an extra premium of course, and there are many exclusions.  Sometimes you may find you can get international cover for listed items on your home contents policy, sometimes this is better value for that expensive camera gear.  

The moral of this story is read the PDS (product disclosure statement) carefully.  

Google Reviews

Also check the google reviews of each insurance company you are considering.  Ignore the ones that talk about how easy it was to pay for the insurance (most companies make it easy for you to give them money), just read the ones that are about making a claim, that can often change your mind about what looks like a good company.

You only find out how good your insurance is when you have to use it (or, read the reviews and find out other peoples experiences first), good luck!

You can read more about my fun experiences with insurance companies HERE>>