Saturday, Jul 23, 2016

Dubai: After losing some valuables on a trip to Cambodia recently, British expatriate Chris swears to never go on a holiday without getting insurance cover first.

The Dubai-based expatriate lost $5,000 (Dh18,364) worth of personal items while inside his hotel room.

“While we were sleeping between 2am and 7am, someone broke into our room and stole our laptop, phone, watch and some cash. We woke up and realised they were already gone,” Chris, 33, a media professional, told Gulf News.

“I do take travel insurance but only when I know there’s a known risk in the place I’m going to like when I’m going skiing. Since we didn’t have travel insurance for our trip to Cambodia, we wouldn’t be compensated for this loss.”

Chris is not alone. A survey by YouGov showed only about one-third of UAE respondents bought insurance — but only occasionally — while more than half of UAE residents have never bought travel insurance.

Having travel insurance this holiday season when residents travel en masse out of the UAE to cooler climes in Europe or to more exotic places in Asia provides a safety net for unforeseen occurrences. But residents seldom realise this, A.K. Ravindran, technical director at RSA, said.

“While we all know that people in the UAE love to travel, insurance is usually the last thing on their minds when they book their trips abroad. We are yet to see the level of awareness for travel insurance that we see in more mature markets when it comes to understanding the benefits of this form of protection,” Ravindran told Gulf News.

Because travel insurance is not as popular as motor or health insurance, it’s usually unheard of — till an accident or an unfortunate incident happens abroad.

“Most travellers do not consider travel insurance a necessity until it is too late. This is mainly due to the lack of travellers’ awareness of the benefits of travel insurance and, consequently, the need to invest in the product,” Essam Mouslimani, head of Regional Retail Product Offering at AXA Gulf, told Gulf News.

These unforeseen situations could be a sudden illness or accidental injury where the traveller may have to pay for medical treatment abroad, Claire Ryan, head of Group Personal Insurance, MENA, AIG, said. This could be a problem since UAE residents’ medical insurance typically covers only the UAE.

“Other occurrences can be flight delay and baggage delay, forcing the traveller to incur additional costs during the trip which go beyond their travel expense budget,” Ryan added.

Worse than baggage delay is when your baggage gets lost altogether. In 2015, more than 23 million bags were lost or mishandled on a global level due to loss during transfer, delays and mishandling issues, ticketing and switching errors, and tagging, among others, according to the Baggage Report from SITA published in April this year.

Although having travel insurance does not ensure these things will not happen to you, having one could give travellers the buffer they need when abroad. Extra expenses for emergency cases are the last thing on people’s minds when travelling.

Most people are also unaware that travel insurance can be very cheap for a short holiday and flexible policies are available when travelling in groups or multiple times a year.

“The reasons people refrain from buying policies is primarily because they think it is too expensive — whereas it only costs Dh50 for a five-day policy — while many also tend to leave things to fate and hope for the best when travelling as nobody wants to consider the negative possibilities,” Ravindran said.

By Janice Ponce de Leon Staff Reporter

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