Essential Travel Insurance

Travel Essentials

Online travel insurance specialist Essential Travel has the muscle of two of the world's largest insurance outfits behind them - Aon and Groupama.

Set up in 2001, today Essential Travel cater for the needs of over quarter of a million travellers each year, so they must be doing something right.

Essential Travel offer a wide range of travel insurance products online including -

• Single Trip
• Annual Trip
• Winter Sports
• Golf Cover

Policies cover individuals, families or groups up to 74 years of age.

They have among the most competitively priced premiums in the UK - up to 50% cheaper than policies sold by high street travel agents.

Essential Travel is a member of the General Insurance Standards Council (GISC).

Website: EssentialTravel.co.uk

The site is easy to navigate so booking online is straightforward. But if you get stuck, you can pick up the phone and speak to an operator.

All the policies are super flexible - you can add or remove baggage cover, winter sports or golf cover - depending on your needs.

And for last-minute getaways, you can even buy cover at the airport.

Single trip travel insurance

UK, Europe, Australia & New Zealand, or Worldwide including USA & Canada - the world's your playground, as long as your trip is no longer than 31 days.

Cover for a week in Paris, for example, starts from a modest £8.70 and kids go free when travelling with 2 insured adults.

Among the benefits on offer are -

• £5m medical cover
• £2m personal liability cover
• £3,000 cancellation cover
• £1,750 personal effects and baggage cover

The excess for claims under the standard policy is £40.

But for a few pennies more (85p to be exact) you could upgrade to Superior single trip travel insurance cover and buy into better cover levels and a lower excess.

So the cost of insurance for that week in Paris would rise from £8.70 to £9.55.

In return for that extra 85p, cancellation cover is upped by £2000, travel delay by 50%, legal advice and expenses increased by £10,000 and hijack and mugging cover doubled.

Once you go online, it's easy to upgrade to superior cover, just by ticking the option box.

Go for it

All Essential Travel policies automatically cover you for 101 activities, from cycling to go-karting, horse riding to jet skiing.

Read the small print before you go hell for leather at your chosen activity.

Go karting gets the green light but up to 120cc only and it has to be an organised event. And there's no liability cover (ouch).

If you go horse riding, forget taking part in competitions/jumping - they're out. Plus make sure you wear protective headgear.

And yes, jet skiing gets the thumbs up but here again there's no liability cover.

On the other hand safari/gorilla trekking is OK - but it has to be properly organised.

Single trip travel insurance with golf cover

Hopping over to Spain or Portugal and hoping to get in a round of golf?

Investigate the golf cover option for up to £1000 worth of cover for equipment, club hire up to £250 and loss of pre-paid green fees up to £250 if you can't play for medical reasons.

Single trip travel insurance with winter sports

You're covered for off-piste skiing/snowboarding but only inside your resort. Outside, you must be supervised by a qualified guide/instructor approved by the resort.

You can't venture into unknown territory - unrecognised ski routes are no-go areas. And don't stray into areas that the resort highlights as inappropriate/dangerous. Common sense, really.

The winter sports option covers personal (not hired) ski equipment and there's a financial cushion in the event of piste closures and avalanches.

Other winter sports covered are -

• Cross country skiing (only on recognised paths)
• Dry Slope skiing
• Heli skiing (excludes cancellation cover)
• Mono skiing
• Sledging
• Snow Boarding
• Husky sleigh rides
• Snow shoe walking
• Reindeer Safari (organised and with a guide)
• Snow Cat Safari (excludes cancellation cover - must be professionally organised and on a recognised route)
• Telemark skiing (only on recognised paths)
• Ski Randonee (only on recognised paths)

Annual travel insurance

Here again you can design the policy to suit you - annual travel insurance with golf/winter sports cover, with or without baggage or cancellation cover, or upgrade to superior cover for very little extra, but with lots more benefits.

Take as many trips as you like in any 12-month period for up to 21, 31 or 45 days per trip, depending on what best suits your travel style.

The longer the length of your stay, the higher the premium because it's more likely something could go wrong.

Risks

Similarly an annual Europe-only policy will be cheaper than one that lets you travel the world, again because the farther you roam from home, the greater the risks.

For an annual policy with a maximum stay per trip of 21 days in Europe, for instance, the knockdown bargain basement, no-frills budget price is £37.60. With superior cover, that rises to £42.22. Worldwide, you're looking at £43.80 and £46.38 respectively.

Extend the length of any one trip in Europe to 31 days, and the cost rises accordingly - £39.41 (superior, £44.05).

Still in Europe, for longer single trips of up to 45 days, it's £41.35 and £52.37 respectively.

For worldwide cover for trips of up to 45 days, reckon on paying £53.78 or, for superior cover, £56.51.

Home and away

Breaks in the UK are covered under Essential's annual travel insurance policy - but not within a 50-mile radius of home. Plus you must have booked at least 2 nights paying accommodation somewhere.

Kids go free

For families, adults can travel separately but kids can't - they have to be accompanied by one of the insured grown-ups.

Over 65

If you're on the wrong side of 74, stop reading now.

Senior cits have to be under 74 to take out either Essential Travel's Senior Citizen Single Trip Travel Insurance or Senior Citizen Annual Travel Insurance.

Another limitation is that both the single trip and annual policies restrict you to a maximum length of stay of 31 days.

Even gloomier for the more active amongst us, winter sports are out (sorry) and there's no superior cover option either.

So what do you get for your £16.88 premium for a 7-day trip to Europe? Or your £85.28 for an annual travel insurance policy that allows you to run loose round Europe for a year?

Much the same as for younger people, including:

• £5m medical cover
• £2m personal liability cover
• £25,000 of personal accident cover
• £3,000 cancellation cover

But you only get £10 a day hospital expenses (£20 for people under 65) and the death benefit is just £1,500 (£10,000 for under 65s).

You get swizzled, too, when it comes to loss of limbs or permanent disablement - zilch (£20,000 for under 65s).

But Essential Travel are no different than most insurers in this respect, and the age-challenged do tend to find themselves out on a limb when it comes to insurance.

Bet that's cheered you up.

Contact details

Essential Travel's call centre opening hours are:-

Tel 0870 343 0024 (National Call Rate)
Fax 0871 750 1653

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