Travel insurance advice needed please

July 25th, 2014
Hello everyone. Happy Friday!
Just a little advice needed. I'm off on my holidays to France tonight but have just realised in a panic that I have no insurance for loss and theft of my camera equipment and mac laptop. I don't have home insurance just now as we are still in a hotel following our move to Qatar and I already have medical etc. My credit card doesn't cover loss and theft.
Does anyone know of any decent reasonably priced policies that will cover all my equipment?
Many thanks in advance!
Trisha
July 25th, 2014
Sorry Trish can't help you with advice on companies but I'd recommend that you read any fine print before signing up.

When I first moved to the UK, I went to sign up with a travel insurance here only to realise that in order to qualify I had to be resident here for something like 6 months. So basically they would have happily taken my money but come time to claim they would have rejected it.
July 25th, 2014
I use photoguard for my camera equipment but it is an annual policy including travel.
July 25th, 2014
@roseolivia @toast thanks Rachel and Weng. Had a look at photo guard. Exactly what I need but as very luckily mentioned by you toast the fine print says that I have to have been a UK resident for last 12 months. Guess I'm just going to have to risk it. Yikes
July 26th, 2014
Sometimes the credit card that you booked your trip with has some sort of protections that come along with it. Is that a possibility??? Sort of grasping at straws, but it saved my son when they had a fender bender in a rental car, and his insurance policy didn't cover it because he wasn't carrying the right kind of coverage. His Credit Card Coverage kicked in and took care of it.
July 26th, 2014
@petersonsheri thats a very good point... a lot of credit cards (especially the high end ones) include insurance. Once again read the fine print because in the old days there were a lot of conditions ... i.e. you had to have booked all travel on that credit card for it to be applicable. I believe that these restrictions have been let up but best check.

To be honest with you, the one time that I actually needed travel insurance, I wasn't covered. I was travelling from Lake Maggiore to the airport to fly to ibiza. However, on the highway there was a huge accident that banked back cars for about 10km. Even though i'd aimed to get to the airport 2 hours before my flight plus given a 30 minute contingency on top, the traffic jam caused us to miss the flight. Turns out that insurance would have covered me if i'd been IN the accident, but not because of traffic jams caused by an accident. I was pretty angry at the time as i was literally on the phone with the insurance company and the conversion went:

"what? wait so you mean if i just ram this guy in front of me, i'll be covered?
"wait sir, no don't do that!" :)
August 22nd, 2014
@toast ~ Sorry for the late reply! Summer has been crazy. The fine print can really get you, and I am stunned at the situation you were in. I think the little devil sitting on my left shoulder maybe would have made me "accidentally" press on the gas pedal. Wow!
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