Is travel insurance worth it? How travel insurance saved my holiday

4 minute read

arrival and departure board at an airport showing delays across the board

Even the best‑planned trip can go sideways. These three stories show how travel insurance can be a lifeline in a tight spot.

Last year, 52‑year‑old Fran Foley‑Winston found herself with a broken ankle in one of Europe’s most expensive countries.​ “It happened on the tiniest step in the middle of the day. It was just one of those unfortunate accidents,” she says.

The shock came when she learned how Swiss hospitals work.

“In Switzerland, apparently, you have to pay CHF400 [around £380] when you go into a hospital and that’s before your triage,” she explains. “Needless to say, I did not want to pay and also would’ve been stretched to do so because Switzerland is not a cheap country and I’d been there a few days at that stage.”​

Foley-Winston rang her insurer. “And from then it was stress-free,” she says.

They explained that with her European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) card, they have to treat it as if you’re walking into an NHS hospital, so you don’t get charged.

“My insurer even went through a list of the hospitals that take it, because Switzerland is EEA instead of EU,” she says. The result? “I went to the hospital and literally paid nothing and got thousands of pounds-worth of care.”​

Discovering the value of travel insurance

a broken leg in a cast elevated across three aeroplane seats

Getting home was where Fran really saw the value of her cover. She’d been staying in Montreux and was due to fly from Geneva.

“Once I got back to my hotel, I just emailed them the fit-to-fly letter. By the next morning, they had booked me a taxi from Montreux to Geneva, assistance at the airport and three seats on my flight, so I could sit with my leg elevated.”

She adds, wryly: “I think they spent more getting me home than I’ve paid in premiums over the years. It was the first time I’ve ever had to use travel insurance for anything, but I was so glad I had it.”​

Stranded for a month in San Francisco

It’s always a good idea to ensure you have travel insurance in place before you set off on a trip. And it’s always advisable to know exactly what it covers.

For 61‑year‑old Neil Masters, travel insurance stepped in after a freak accident left him helpless abroad.

“Ten minutes after arriving in a San Francisco hotel, I collided with an ill-placed towel rack and it put me in intensive care,” Masters says.

At the time, he only had the travel insurance that came with his bank account. “This paid all of my medical expenses, hospital stay plus scans and hotel bills – accommodation only – but I was advised against flying for 30 days.”​

However, it is crucial that you check the small print. In Masters’ case, it didn’t cover incidentals such as meals and hotel laundry. He says: “I only had a weekend’s-worth of clothes with me, so I had to do a lot of laundry. I had a £3,000 bill when I left the hotel for room service and laundry.”​

Luckily for Neil, the insurer deemed this medically necessary and offered to pay for first-class travel back to England, complete with transport to and from the airports.

Snowmageddon in New York

a black and white photo of a woman relaxing on a hotel bed

For 57‑year‑old Sarah Drew Jones and her partner Paul, it was the weather that tested her festive cheer, her marriage and her budget.

“We got married in a snowy New York in December 2002,” she says. “Eight years later, we went back for our wedding anniversary… and this time it REALLY snowed.”​

The couple almost didn’t go at all. “Our flight out of Heathrow had been held on the runway for two hours while air-traffic control monitored the snow that had just begun to fall. I said to Paul, ‘I don’t think we’re going anywhere today’. But I was wrong, we took off; the last flight out of Heathrow that day, and for several afterwards, I think.”

The weekend (which became known in the media as Snowmageddon) turned into a 10-night extended stay in New York over Christmas.

“We had to cancel the big family Christmas we’d planned to host at home, scramble to sort out accommodation and find something to do on Christmas Day in a city brought to a standstill by a thick blanket of snow,” Drew Jones says.

“At this stage, I admit it started to feel less like a fun adventure and more of a mess,” she says. “We had a fridge groaning with Christmas food at home, pet care to be extended with the catsitter and we’d ruined the plans of several family members and friends who’d banked on spending three days with us. We were freezing all the time and had to buy books, socks and underwear – and walking around in the snow soon got a bit old.”​

But there were some upsides. “An unexpected Christmas in NYC doesn’t sound too bad though, does it? And we didn’t grumble, much,” Drew Jones says. Through Facebook, they discovered that an old friend and her daughter were also snowed in at a New York hotel, so they found a fantastic restaurant that was open and had a lovely festive lunch, followed by a bracingly cold but beautiful hike through a frozen Central Park. The travel insurance covered the hotel and extra days of food. “It’s a treasured memory now,” Drew Jones laughs. “But would I travel in a snowstorm again? Nope.”​

 

Extraordinary as some of these stories are, a comprehensive travel insurance policy can help with whatever curveball your holiday throws at you, giving you peace of mind to make the most of your trip. Find out more about the Travel Insurance offered through Age Co, including details of cover limits for features such as Cancellation Cover and Emergency Medical, as well as Optional Extras such as Natural Disaster Cover.

TI2070R1MAR26