We say not. While you may have free travel insurance cover on your credit card, we still recommend taking a specific policy for your travel, especially if it is going to be longer than a few weeks.
Booking tickets and planning, sure up until you get on the plane, or boat, use the credit card coverage (Within the constraints of your cover, travel duration could be a trap if it's a long trip). Once you step on the plane have your real cover in place.
We do not advise on travel insurance directly, we refer to an adviser who is a specialist and only does travel insurance.
Why? Because travel insurance is one of the most complained about insurance covers, and getting it right before you get on the plane is important. You do not get time to fix it once you have left and once you have a claimable event a complaint is the only real remedy you have available.
We would rather you got the right advice to make the right decision before you get on the plane.
There has been plenty written on the subject, so we're not going to rehash it all again here.
Suffice to say the critical things to be aware of if you are relying on your credit card for your travel insurance cover:
- Check the qualifying criteria, some it is already covered others you have to pay for some or all of the trip with your credit card.
- Check who is covered, sometimes just the cardholder, others everyone booking on the trip, different travel dates for individuals travelling can be a problem too.
- Check age qualifying criteria, some cards have quite a low older age limit.
- Check pre-existing conditions coverage, most will exclude existing conditions, specific cover needs to be taken for pre-existing conditions, this is where we are back to the specialist adviser.
- Check where you are going is covered, and all the stops in between. The Safe Travel site is a good start for travel warnings .
For further reading:
- Diana Clement's article, Be cautious with credit card travel insurance, is worth the read
- TINZ's article from Credit card travel insurance - it's crunch time is as well.
A caveat is the TINZ site looks to be a subsidiary of 1Cover, which is a travel insurance provider. We do not endorse 1Cover as suitable for your situation but it may suit your purposes. We would recommend talking to a travel insurance specialist for you to get the right advice.
Contact us if you want to have this discussion to ensure you have the right travel insurance cover before you get on the plane!
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