Travel insurance

Should you or shouldn’t you?
Whoever travels abroad, visits friends, family or goes on vacation, is well served getting a travel insurance policy before going away. The simple truth is that the expense of having suddenly to return in a rush to the Netherlands will be greater the farther away you are. What we are talking about are the costs of medically warranted transportation; travelling back from your skiing vacation in a cast is one example. Also the sudden need to be back home because of another type of emergency: think of a death in the family, fire at home and so forth. A good travel insurance policy will do more for you than just reimbursing travel expenses.    

Medical
Inside of the Netherlands you will normally be sufficiently covered by your healthcare insurance, but many will cut back severely on the cover they provide as soon as you leave the country or leave Europe. Some will cover up to 200% of what they would insure in the Netherlands, but others not more than 100%. You might imagine the type of problems this can cause.

Travel insurance simply covers all medically required expenses not covered by your regular healthcare insurer. Another factor is that there is always a risk you will fall ill abroad and are required to return home. Not something covered by many healthcare insurance policies.  All good reasons for having travel insurance.

And also
Replacement transportation if your car breaks down on holiday; something that is usually covered with travel policies. As are unexpected emergency expenses, such as locating lost luggage, or getting copies of your passport, or having additional accommodation expenses because you got snowed in, as would be the cost of rushing back home in an emergency. There are of course many more reasons.  

Luggage
Actually, the least important item: theft of your luggage. Or sometimes it includes loss, depending on the circumstances.

Anyone going abroad for any amount of time should seriously consider travel insurance. There are two different kinds:

The single trip travel insurance
The type of policy you would purchase every time you go abroad. The cost will depend on several factors:
1. European cover or worldwide cover
2. Skiing holiday, cross-country only, or neither
3. Limited or expanded luggage cover
Premiums are usually quite affordable. The biggest factor is how long you’re going.

Continuous travel insurance
For those who travel abroad quite a bit it might be cheaper to buy continuous travel insurance protection. What is covered is comparable between both types of policy, but renewal expenses can be avoided. Having continuous travel insurance on your side can also provide some peace of mind. You will never leave home without insurance!   


Cancellation insurance
This type of insurance policy will ensure that you are reimbursed for your paid travel costs if you are prevented from going on vacation. Or if you must interrupt your vacation, for example, because of illness, either your own or that of an immediate member of the family. Perhaps there is a death involved, or one of many other possible causes that are listed in the policy conditions. 

The premium cost for an individual cancellation policy will on average run to 4.5% to 5% of the amount of travel expenses. If you were to link the travel cancellation insurance policy to your continuous travel insurance policy, the premium payment for a single person will cost on average € 34 and for a family with children it would be € 68 on average. Standard cover in such cases would be € 1250 per person with up to a maximum of € 5,000 per trip.
It is very easy to link a travel cancellation policy to either a single trip travel insurance policy or to a continuous one.