Travel insurance worth it: have health insurance, not worried about non-health risk?

tmh106

Hi everyone.

I’m going to Lanzarote for a week, and I haven’t taken out travel insurance yet. I do have health insurance, with Aviva, and I have an EHIC card. I think these will cover me for any illness or any medical treatment I might need if I were to suffer an accident. Assuming I am correct about that, then my understanding is the main additional benefit of having travel insurance is to cover for delayed/cancelled flights, lost bags, items stolen etc. If I’m not particularly worried about any of these (i.e. if they happen I just suck it up and take my loss) is there any real value in buying travel insurance?

Thanks for any advice offered.

tmh

Evenstevens

I don't think you'd be covered for repatriation if anything happened to you as in if you were ill but had to be brought home by medical staff etc. That's the only thing I can think of. For a week it's really not going to cost much. If you can afford or you're prepared to take the loss of bags/stolen goods etc then maybe €10 isn't such a big amount to pay for peace of mind.

munchkin_utd

ach, it depends.
some countries like greece and to an extent Spain have doctors and clinics which dont accept the EHIC meaning you end up with a bill to pay.
On the other hand, France/ Austria/ Germany/ UK etc have decent public systems where the EHIC is more use than private insurance for the treatment on the ground.

The repatriation is another factor, but I've never heard of anyone south of 60 years old needing it. Also, you might have it already covered on a credit card or AA policy or the likes anyhow.
At this stage I've no travel insurance but multiple repatriation cover!

oh, and another reason to have travel insurance is if you are a family, as you have 4x (or more) the amount of flights and kids who pick up every class of bug in creche/ school which may scupper travel plans

Daisies

You can usually get travel insurance through your health insurance provider for a minimal amount extra. I'd go with it. For something like a camera, the cost of the travel insurance would be a small percentage in relation to the cost of buying a new camera

athtrasna

Daisies wrote: »

You can usually get travel insurance through your health insurance provider for a minimal amount extra. I'd go with it. For something like a camera, the cost of the travel insurance would be a small percentage in relation to the cost of buying a new camera

+1

God forbid that something should go wrong and you should need to rush home for non medical reasons. Last minute flights are expensive. Travel insurance is cheap

tmh106

Thanks everyone who replied, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Based on all the advice offered I'm going with the travel insurance. Will go get a quick quote on getcover.ie now.

tmh

ECO_Mental

I posted here earlier this year the exact same question and what came out was that if you have already health insurance then tagging on travel insurance with your health insurance provider worked out for me the wife and two kids for the year only 60euro.

Its a no brainer really for the extra piece of mind

solerina

tmh106 wrote: »

Thanks everyone who replied, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Based on all the advice offered I'm going with the travel insurance. Will go get a quick quote on getcover.ie now.

tmh

Make sure you look at the annual multi trip quotes, often cheaper than the single trip option. Policy for the year for myself and OH cost 84 euro for worldwide cover (didn't include ski trip but all else included)

pjproby

Just wondering who you got your policy from for €84? thanks

keithclancy

tmh106 wrote: »

Hi everyone.

I’m going to Lanzarote for a week, and I haven’t taken out travel insurance yet. I do have health insurance, with Aviva, and I have an EHIC card. I think these will cover me for any illness or any medical treatment I might need if I were to suffer an accident. Assuming I am correct about that, then my understanding is the main additional benefit of having travel insurance is to cover for delayed/cancelled flights, lost bags, items stolen etc. If I’m not particularly worried about any of these (i.e. if they happen I just suck it up and take my loss) is there any real value in buying travel insurance?

Thanks for any advice offered.

tmh

Its worth it if something happens. You might not be fit to fly immediately for example. In my case they upgraded me to business class and paid for hotels and transfers.

anne burnell

take out the travael insurance... we have annual worldwide insurance with Blue Insurance for less than E70 for myself and my husband,

Sully

On this note, Lanzarote have clinics that take the European Health Card. I've used it myself. The only downside is they sometimes don't speak great English and in my case added stuff onto my subscription that I didn't need. It was only on a repeat visit (the paperwork they gave wasn't valid) that a different doctor spotted the error and the original doctor, when asked, was unsure why she added additional medication.