Dubai - MENA Herald: Huge numbers of UAE citizens are risking missing out on valuable cover by neglecting to arrange their travel policies until the last hour, alarming insurance providers of the potential that holiday goers may not understand the value and necessity for these products to ensure a safe and happy vacation.
In the midst of the Dubai summer, and a huge percentage of its residents choosing to opt for cooler climates and vacationing elsewhere from the ever-scolding and humid emirates’, compareit4me travel insurance team are seeing more and more customers leaving purchasing travel insurance policies until the last minute.
According to research from their own customer data, over half (59%) of travel insurance purchases were within 5 days of customers departing to their vacation destination – staggering when you consider that 1 in 6 customers make a claim on their travel insurance, whether it be for illness, loss of baggage, delays, etc.
Cancellation cover, of course bought in advance of the trip, would enable the traveller to reclaim the costs of their holiday, (up to the cover limit and subtracting any pre-agreed excess), should certain circumstances arise before departing. These could include a serious illness or injury affecting someone in the travelling party or a close relative, who isn’t travelling but with whom they would like to remain with at home.
Jonathan Rawling, CFO and Travel Insurance expert at compareit4me.com says: “Most people book their holidays several months or even years before departure, and so having to cancel a trip for personal reasons could resulting in them losing thousands of Dirhams if they can’t benefit from cancellation cover provided by any, if not all, good travel insurance policies. Unfortunately our research has revealed that more than half of holiday goers are taking an unnecessary gamble that only something which happens within a week of their holiday will cause them to cancel it.”
“You can’t insure yourself against circumstances you were already aware of. If a family member were to become seriously ill in the lead up to the holiday you can’t then take out travel insurance with the intention of cancelling your trip and staging a claim for it. Similarly, you can’t learn about potential serious disruption to your holiday plans, such as that caused by civil unrest or natural disasters, buy a policy and then expect to be able to claim if you then decide to alter travel plans. The insurer will check when you could have reasonably become aware of the potential disruption, and if it was before you arranged your travel insurance an insurer may decline a claim.
“Here are compareit4me.com, we advise our customers to arrange travel cover as close to the point of booking as possible, to ensure the maximum amount of benefit should the need to cancel and claim arise,” concluded Rawling.
