You’ve booked for the cruise of a life-time – accommodation, luscious food, entertainment and exotic travel all in one glorious, high-cost ‘one fee pays for all’ package. Three days before you travel – inside the 7-day No Refund terms of your cruise policy – you fall down some slippery steps and end up in traction. That magnificent cruise sails without you – and with your hard-earned payment – unless! Aren’t you glad you purchased that cancellation/lost deposits and accommodation insurance?

Travel According to O’Brien

The moment you book a holiday, you wander unknowingly into the land of O’Brien’s Law. Who’s O’Brien? He’s the bloke who declares Murphy is an optimist. How often have you or someone you know booked a vacation to a destination that has the reputation of endless sunshine and blue skies, only to be rained out or to be hit with the cyclone of the century?

Sometimes it seems O’Brien’s got it all wrapped up – that is unless you’ve got comprehensive ‘cancellation fees and lost deposits’ travel insurance.

Why Get Accommodation Insurance?

Invariably travellers think mainly of sickness and accident insurance, loss of luggage and possessions and theft when they compare or buy travel insurance. While all these components range from the critical to the important, it’s also vital to insure the financial investment you have outlaid on hotel, resort or other accommodation, cruises or rail journeys, organised tours, concerts and events.

Any number of reasons could cause you to cancel your journey and associated pre-paid travel arrangements. It may be events such as personal accident, sickness, and redundancy, or an event seriously affecting someone close to you. It may be an event that happens after you have started to travel, even world events or climatic conditions that cause you to miss out on holiday highlights already paid for.

Without the ability to reclaim the money you have paid out, you may never recuperate what could be a substantial investment and it may be some time before you are in a financial position to travel again.

What to Look For to Safeguard Your Holiday Dollars

Compare companies, read policy documents and check cover summaries. Between companies there can be a significant difference in the amount covered, and the circumstances you may claim against.

By choosing cancellation and accommodation insurance with unlimited cover you allow for unexpected elements which may all add up to a surprising dollar value. While sickness and illness are critical to insure against – the domino effect could also leave you severely out of pocket.

Tags: Cancellation Insurance

This entry was posted on Monday, May 31st, 2010 at 7:47 am and is filed under Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.