Travel insurance for sabbatical in Australia (young kids?)

[CitizenOscar]

So we're going to Australia for 6 months with our two children (2 & 3 months). The only travel insurance that would cover us for that long is really expensive £3-500.

Is there any way to just buy cover for the two flights instead? Would that be silly? We're staying with family, would be entitled to healthcare etc I believe, so I can only think we need cover for cancellation, lost luggage & potentially medical problems during the journey. I don't think we need it while we're actually there.

Has anyone done something like that?

You're paying enough already to fly to Australia, it would be daft to in any way skimp on travel insurance cover purely on grounds of cost. Cheaper policies do not cover anything more than the basics; you want to be safe rather than sorry and potentially end up with huge bills.

Never assume either that you would not need any healthcare whilst you are there considering too that you are going there for 6 months.

This is what you would receive as a British citizen under Medicare and its not a great deal beyond the minimum tbh:-

www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/medicare/reciprocal-health-care-agreements/health-care-for-visitors-to-australia

Thanks Attila. I'll take a look at the link.

Also meant to ask whether anyone had any recommendations for good insurance companies for this type of trip? Many seem to have limits on the amount of consecutive days you're abroad, and backpacker policies don't tend to consider families that well.

'don't think we'll need cover while we are actually there'

oh yes you do. Look up the gappies who believed this, and bankrupted their families after a bad accident. Hope it won't happen to you but it COULD. Repatriation from Australia means goodbye house. Even the locals pay for treatment.

as for policy types; what you want is a single trip longstay policy, backpacker policies won't work for you. Direct Travel is one company that does this.

it costs what it costs. Can't afford the insurance, can't afford the holiday.