As the South African festive season draws near, most South Africans are already in full swing planning their holiday.
Most travellers will be looking to take to the skies and travel abroad again after two years of restrictions due to the global pandemic.
Jason Veitch, Head of Travel Insurance at Travel Insurance Consultants (TIC), a division of Santam Group, said although it’s encouraging to see a consistent uptick in air passenger numbers, he warned that in the current global climate, holidaymakers simply could not afford to travel without purchasing a comprehensive travel insurance policy.
“We’ve seen a fair amount of disruptions in the travel market post-Covid, and the war between Russia and the Ukraine has added to this. Airlines are struggling to commit to flight routes due to fuel shortages resulting in flight cancellations and missed connecting flights,” said Veitch.
According to the head of travel insurance, airlines will accommodate their passengers where possible, but this may not always suit the passenger’s itinerary and, as a result, TIC’s post-Covid policy uptake seems to be mirroring the rise in passenger numbers after a significant number of travellers were caught without the correct travel insurance policies during the Covid pandemic when the company experienced its highest influx of claims to date.
As a result, medical claims were the most claimed benefit of a travel insurance policy and accounted for 45% of claims submitted and 62% of the total cost of claims.
The second most claimed benefit was cover on luggage, both damage and theft, at 28% of total claims.
“Medical and luggage cover are followed by cancellation, curtailment, or extension, which made up 14% of claims submitted to TIC. The remaining 13% of TIC claims were related to travel delay, luggage delay, death, and disablement,” said Veitch.
With that said, there are three extremely important reasons for purchasing a travel insurance policy, according to Veitch.
The first is the unaffordable cost of medical treatment abroad.
“TIC’s largest medical claim originally amounted to R38.5 million. Virtually no South African would be able to pay this claim without the correct travel insurance policy being in place,” said Veitch.
Secondly, he states that the potential loss of the enormous amount of money the policyholder commits to their travel budget should things go wrong or a holiday is cancelled is another reason to make sure you’re covered.
“And lastly, the low cost of a travel insurance policy, in comparison to the potential expense of not having a comprehensive policy, is a no-brainer,” said Veitch.
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