There are a few factors to be considered when buying travel insurance.  They include personal baggage cover, cancellation and several other issues.

Personal Baggage

The value of the luggage that you are taking with you determines the degree of cover required for personal items.  It should be kept in mind that normally there is a limit for individual items that are valuable and you may have to buy separate insurance for them. 

Delayed or lost luggage is usually covered under travel insurance policies.  For example, if you are on a seven-day stay and your luggage does not appear until six days into your holiday, you will be covered up to a set monetary amount of compensation.

Cancellation Cover

The level of cancellation cover you have must be checked in order to avoid any problems if you have to make a claim.  Factors that are usually covered include illness, redundancy and death in the family.  However, it is important to double check, for example to be clear about how the insurer defines ‘close family member’.  If you are aware of something that might happen while you are on holiday, your insurance will not cover it. 

Other Factors That Should be Covered

Personal accident insurance:  your travel insurance policy should cover you for death or for instance, the loss of a limb.  You may think that this cover will be extensive, but that is not the case.  The average pay out for death is about £15,000 and about £25,000 for permanent disablement.

Public liability insurance: this protects you in the case of being sued by someone for something that happened while abroad.