COMMENT
Blimey! How Much For Travel Cover?

I'm in the lucky position of looking forward to three family holidays this year, which is nice.

Last year, my wife and I had just one holiday, which was in the UK, because we had a young baby and didn't fancy going abroad. However, this year, we're off to France for a week, Spain for two weeks, plus we're having our annual week in Cornwall. Yippee!

We could, of course, book three separate travel insurance policies – one for each trip – but it makes far more sense to buy an annual policy. That's because an annual policy will provide us with cover for a full twelve months, which takes us well into March next year. What's more, an annual policy is likely to be considerably cheaper than three separate policies, plus there's less paperwork to deal with.

Still, two things still shock me about travel insurance. The first is that around a quarter of the two million Brits who encounter problems abroad each year don't have travel insurance. So, roughly half a million people face troubles ranging from lost luggage and minor injuries through to muggings, road traffic accidents and serious diseases - without any backup or financial support. D'oh!

The second howler is that millions of people still buy travel insurance from their tour operator or travel agent, even though they know they're being ripped off. Amazingly, six out of ten holidaymakers still buy travel insurance from tour operators or travel agents, which is scandalous! What's more, tour operators and travel agents aren't governed by the new rules governing the selling of insurance. This means that they will continue to rip us off with high-pressure selling techniques - and even blatant mis-selling. Boo!

According to a report from independent financial researcher Defaqto, tour operators sell the most expensive travel insurance, followed by banks, retailers and travel agents. On the other hand, the cheapest policies come from brokers and direct insurers, which are only a phone call or website visit away.

So, travel companies are the worst providers of travel insurance, plus their policies often provide inferior cover, too! My recent experience backs this up: the travel firm arranging my French trip demanded £100 for its eight-day family policy. What, a ton? You're having a laugh!

I checked the eight Best Buy single-trip policies listed in this article to see how much they charge. The cheapest family policy for our eight-day trip to France for two adults and two children was £24.57 at Travelplan Direct. That's less than a quarter of the cost of the tour operator's policy and saves me over £75, which would a mountain of croissants! Other competitive quotes came from Travelstore.com (£25), Debenhams (£30), Esure (£30), Direct Travel (£32.50) and Sainsbury's Bank (£32.50).

Finally, I checked the ten Best Buy annual policies listed in the same article to find out how much a year's European cover for a family of four would cost. The cheapest quotes were from Travsure (£69), Yorkshire BS (£70 for YBS customers), Essential Travel (£70.58) and Debenhams (£78). (Three of these ten Best Buy policies are only available through insurance brokers, and I didn't have enough time to check these quotes.)

So, I could buy an annual Best Buy policy from Travsure that costs £69 and covers me for multiple trips of up to sixty days' duration throughout Europe. Or I could pay £100 for a shoddy eight-day policy from my tour operator. I think you can guess which policy I'm going to plump for!

PS: Egg is offering Egg cardholders who are aged under 65 European annual family travel insurance for an amazing £15 until the end of March. This unbelievable offer is my Best Buy by miles!

More: Get a competitive quote for travel cover from our Insurance centre.