About Operatif Australia
Comprehensive Travel Insurance, including Cancellation Insurance, is mandatory on all our tours. There are many companies who sell travel insurance in Australia and most travel editors and many advisory sites would say that purchasing travel insurance is preferable to relying on something included, for free, with your credit card.
While never able to actually recommend one company over another, the following are widely used in the travel industry and/or well recommended by industry or financial comparison sites. Most offer just 12 months cancellation cover prior to your departure, but we understand that Medibank Private offers a longer cover.
We cannot do the cover for you, as it is a personal matter, requiring disclosure of personal issues, including the all-important ‘pre-existing conditions’. In our opinion, this is the most contentious issue with a travel insurance claim and failure to disclose a condition from the last few years ( often this is 5 years ) can result in a claim being refused. Often there is no extra charge, but it must be disclosed. When there is an extra charge, this is clearly better than having your claim refused. We suggest you try at least a couple of the following, as prices can vary greatly depending on where the trip is to, your age and those pre-existing conditions. Of course, ensure you are ‘comparing apples with apples’, in terms of cover and level of cancellation insurance ( compulsory on our tours).
CLICK HERE for a recently published magazine article by Covermore
Some are quite impersonal and regimented while others are very caring ( for example some understand that not everyone is a computer/email/mobile phone wiz). Some are extremely slow and have a 10 day response time for any email or phone call you make ( following a query on the claim ). Others are very much just ‘retail brokers’ for an insurance company, so, for example, if you buy a policy from a little local Credit Union, your claim with not be processed by them. Always see who the underwriter is, whether claim enquiries and assistance are handled in Australia and what their record is like for making timely and fair claim payments.
CLICK HERE to read about Southern Cross’ definitions of Pre-Existing Conditions and CLICK HERE to read Covermore’s. Whoever you consider, please remember not all insurance companies are the same and they do not all approach claims in the same way.
