A recent survey of 3,000 New Zealanders planning on travelling overseas (or who have recently travelled) indicates that 33% have either never had travel insurance cover, or only take out cover sometimes.
We very strongly recommend to our clients that you have cover in place, even if you are only going to Australia. We also recommend that you contact your insurer, declare all of your existing conditions and pay the premium to cover them while you are travelling.
If you think it is too expensive, you probably shouldn't be travelling. The downside of not having travel insurance (and ensuring that it is decent cover) can be that you are left hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket.
The implications can be as small as your luggage going missing (as happened to a friend when there was the Microsoft Outage in late July), losing around $9,000 of items (including favourite clothes) to having to pay for serious health treatment, which could cost tens if not hundred's of thousands of dollars, depending on which country you are travelling in (The USA being the most expensive).
You may choose to use the travel insurance through your credit card (as 12% of people do). But make sure that you check the terms and conditions. Will it allow you to work at all while you are away? How many days are you covered for? Will that cover your whole trip? What exclusions are there on the policy?
Of the people who don't intend to take travel insurance, 30% said they didn't think it was necessary, 13% said they had never had problems in the past and 11% said they couldn't afford it.
Medical expenses make up most of the claims (20%), followed by missed connections and travel delays (17%) Covid-specific cover (16%), lost baggage and personal items (15%) and lost money and credit cards (13%).
Also, remember to arrange your travel insurance when you start booking, as if anything happens between when you book and when you are due to leave, your travel insurance can help out. If you have credit card insurance, make sure that you 'activate it' by contacting the insurer.
And also remember if you are travelling beyond Australasia, let your bank and credit card issuers know where you are and when and register on the SafeTravel website to keep up with any developments (and so that you can be found if anything major like a natural disaster or war happens). https://www.safetravel.govt.nz/
Have safe travels.
