International travel insurance - reliable and affordable
Getting cheap international travel insurance should be a vital part of every travel plan. No matter where you are going, overseas travel insurance is important.
Tourism Research Australia states that over 5 million Australians went overseas for their holidays in 2008. Residents from Australia spent 111 million nights away on international travel, which amounts to an average of 21 nights per trip overseas. There is no data available on how many Australians took out world wide travel insurance for their trip.
In 2008, over 330,000 Australians chose to take a cruise holiday. This is a steep 26% rise compared to the previous year. Cruise travel insurance is often included in package bookings, but travellers should make sure to book their cruise insurance with a respectable provider should it not be included.
The most popular international destinations were New Zealand, followed by the USA and Canada, the UK, Thailand and Indonesia, Singapore, China and ‘Other Asia’ (including India). The most popular reason for Australians to travel overseas was holiday (54%), visiting friends and relatives (24%) and business (21%).
An estimated one third of Australian residents travel overseas without global travel insurance in the hope that nothing is going to happen to them. But what if it does ... A simple infection, an unexpected accident, eating the wrong food – all this could lead to mounting medical bills. Medical only travel insurance is recommended as a minimum. Most providers would offer international travel health medical insurance for these requirements.
Imagine the cost of a medical evacuation from a remote area to Australia because the traveller did not take out world travel insurance; these costs can be in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Taking out cheap worldwide travel insurance will save you and your family from having to take out a mortgage on your house to cover those costs.
Cover-More Travel Insurance highly recommends following the advice of Smartraveller, the official travel advice website of the Government of Australia: If you can’t afford travel insurance, you can’t afford to travel!