‘Independent' holidaymakers urged to check travel insurance

Over the next few weeks millions of Brits will be heading off on their summer holidays. But AXA warns that the growing numbers of ‘independent' holidaymakers are leaving themselves potentially exposed by buying a ‘standard' travel insurance product.

July to September is traditionally the busiest time of the year for UK residents to take their holidays with over 16 million taking breaks during this period in 2006. And over the last few years the number of people making their own arrangements rather than buying a package holiday has increased with ‘independents' now outnumbering package holidaymakers - in the summer of 2006 more than 9 million ‘went-it-alone'.

However, insurance provision has not kept pace with the changing profile of the British holidaymaker and independent travellers can find that there are gaps in their insurance cover - such as problems with flight cancellations or delays, missed connections or the customer being denied boarding. AXA launched a unique product (Independent Traveller) earlier this year that will cover these eventualities.

Edward Dutton, AXA's Head of Personal Lines Underwriting said: "Travel insurance has come under some criticism for some of the exclusions in a traditional policy which is why we launched our Independent Traveller product earlier in the year.

"In 2006, 21 million travel policies were taken out - if over half of these are not meeting potential requirements then this is something consumers need to be aware of. We hope that over the coming weeks people will look carefully at what they really need and make sure they get the right cover for their holiday."

The additional cover, which costs around £10 for an annual European policy includes:

delayed departure compensation for delays exceeding 5 hours occurring at the departure point of any connecting flights or booked public transportation on both the outbound and return journeys
cancellation costs if you cancel your trip, or additional expenses to reach your destination because your flight from the UK was cancelled, delayed for more than 5 hours or you were denied boarding due to the flight being overbooked
additional accommodation and travel expenses if you are delayed and miss any onward connecting flights or other public transport
irrecoverable unused accommodation costs or additional expenses if your trip is affected by insolvency of the providers, an outbreak of food poisoning or infectious disease or natural disasters such as fire, flood or earthquake