Is annual travel insurance a good idea?

by Fraser
Updated:

When preparing for a snowboard trip, the majority of us opt for single trip travel insurance without much second thought but for many snowboarders, it might be more cost effective to take out an annual travel insurance policy instead.

There are, of course, pros and cons associated with each option, but generally speaking if you plan on taking more than one or two trips during the year then annual travel insurance will be your best option. You pay a one-off fee to cover you for the whole year, removing the process of having to take out cover each and every time you choose to go away. So if you’re a fairly spontaneous traveler and like to take trips at the drop of a hat, then annual travel insurance can save you a lot of hassle throughout the year.

The kind of people who can typically benefit from annual travel insurance include those who work in a role that requires a lot of foreign travel for business meetings, those who have family living abroad or those who own holiday homes.

On the other hand, if you know for sure that you’ll only be taking one or two snowboarding trips in a year and no other travel plans, then single trip travel insurance is the way to go. Yes, it’ll mean more paperwork before that potential second trip, but then the cost of going with single trip cover will work out cheaper over the year.

Whichever type of cover you decide on, it’s important that you disclose all relevant information when filling out your travel insurance documents. Recent research suggests that more than 500,000 UK-based travelers went abroad in 2009 without fully disclosing pre-existing medical conditions that could have rendered their travel insurance policy void. An even more astonishing figure is the 340,000 British holidaymakers who traveled abroad with no insurance at all last year.

It’s not a risk you should entertain taking; the short-term financial benefit associated with keeping quiet about pre-existing medical conditions or neglecting to take out any insurance at all is heavily outweighed by the huge bills travellers will be faced with should they find their insurance policy to be void when they try and make a claim.

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