Someone please explain travel insurance to me

[Amandasummers]

I've been silly and booked a package deal with a crappy company (cheekytrip) I'm trying to get insurance but they say cover starts from day of trip....what if company cancels before then? I'm prepared to not go with everything happening just don't want to lose all money! Please help me!!

Insurance company will need dates of travel but as soon as you buy (if included in the small print) it will include if company cancel, you break a leg/get covid etc beforehand, something happens when away etc etc

That’s normal. If the company cancels the trip before the day, the company owes you a full refund. If company cancels on the day, company owes you a refund + compensation. You don’t need insurance for this as it’s covered by U.K. laws and ATOL.

Travel insurance is to cover you cancelling on the day or after due to medical or personal reasons, any medical expenses while away, and also repatriation if they have to do a hospital to hospital transfer with medical flight home (too ill to fly commercial). Different policies have different levels and types of coverage. Some even offer you extra compensation for lost baggage, lost or stolen passports/money, plane crash death, etc.

What do the terms and conditions you booked your holiday under state about cancellation, etc? Is the holiday ATOL protected? You want insurance to cover you for the things you can't control, so if you are too unwell to travel, loose something valuable whilst you're away, need medical attention, etc.

I'm pretty sure the holiday company cannot cancel and keep your money, it doesn't work like that. Even if you've been daft enough to sign up to terms and conditions that say that, the law protects consumers and the company wouldn't be able to get away with that. The other thing to remember is, if you have a credit card always use it for things like holidays as you get extra protection. As long as the holiday costs £100 or more you only need to use a credit card for part of the cost to get the cover.

You need to look at the whole details of different travel insurance for the stuff in the run up to your holiday, when it says starts at the first day of holiday that may mean stuff specific to being on holiday like lost luggage.

Lose not loose

Cover should start from when you take out the policy (most of the big companies anyway) but if the company cancels then they should refund you do you wouldn't necessarily be insured for that, it depends on the wording in the policy.

I know our policy (we have an annual) will cover thf airline strikes because at the time we booked flights the strikes hadn't been announced however now that the strikes are known about if I booked more flights now they wouldn't be covered.

If you're worried about part of the package being delivered by a company that will go bust then you need to look for a policy with end supplier failure.

Check the company you've booked with is atol/ abta bonded. You should have been given a certificate after booking.

You don't need insurance for anything that is clearly the fault of a commercial company- if they cancel theh they owe you your money back plus compensation. You still need insurance but it covers stuff that is no-ones fault, and statistically it's going to happen to someone but there's no way to predict who. So everyone who might be the unlucky one pays into a central pot to share the cost of the unluckiest among everyone, rather than the unlucky one bearing all the cost alone. Crucially, because the amount you pay in at the start is calculated according to any factors that might increase your risk, if you withold any information that could affect your risk profile then the whole deal is off and they don't pay out. However they never check unless you make a claim. Many people have been utterly bankrupted by being declared liable for huge medical bills because they just ticked no to everything in the medical questions without thinking carefully.

Things like cancellation cover (e.g. if you fell ill and couldn't travel) and end supplier failure cover (e.g. airline goes bust) start as soon as you buy a single trip policy. Not all policies cover elend supplier failure so make sure you buy a policy that suits your needs.