It has always been very easy to buy travel insurance online. The difficult bit is navigating the comparison websites. I spent hour upon hour looking at travel insurance for a two week holiday to Indonesia. I wouldn’t usually bother with travel insurance, especially when going to a cheap country, but this time it was a condition of joining the expedition.
Little did I know that all those travel insurance options which were once open to me, were now unavailable because I am not a resident of the UK and my journey is not starting and finishing there. I looked at American companies, Malaysian companies (I am going to Indonesia via KL) and international expat insurers.
The only one I could find who would cover me was charging $90 for two weeks! There is no way I am paying that much so I put a call out to my Chinese friends and eventually got a lead – an office on Pudong Nan Lu so I got on the Metro and headed over there today.
I was surprised when I got there to see AIG – aha – this looked very promising. A couple of hours later and I had got myself insured for 2 weeks for less than £20. What a result.
So if any of you are in the same situation, I can recommend AIG for a cheap deal. I cannot comment on how easily they pay out – and I hope never to use it – but it at least gives expats an affordable option to the rip-off expat only online services.