The travel company, HBF just wrote a great article on tips to make your travel insurance claim easier, with some very useful information if you ever find yourself in need of making a claim. I thought they made good points with the following:

1. First, you need to be honest and upfront when you take out your policy. Some pre existing conditions can be covered by your insurance company, so check. You don’t want your policy cancelled because you didn’t mention something!
2. Make sure you read your policy. It’s a bit dry, I know, but there’s a lot of important information in there which will come in handy if you have to make a claim.
3. Keep everything! What’s to stop someone from faking an insurance claim? Insurance companies require evidence. Keep original receipts and documents related to your claim. The worst case scenario, you get home safely and make a scrap book of all your sundry expenses.
4. If you have to make a claim, be as detailed as possible. If you answer everything with enough detail, the insurance company might not have to follow up – making the payment come much faster.
5. This is probably the most annoying advice, but you have to be patient. A lot of companies have standards they have to meet, so as long as you claim is being processed within the time they specify (HBF specifies 10 days, but your insurance company might be different), try to wait.

Obviously you never want to find yourself in a situation where you need to make a travel insurance claim, but if you follow these steps your life will be much easier. I also found an article about the five most common travel insurance claims, so hopefully you can try to avoid them.

Medical claims are probably the most annoying to have to deal with. No one wants to get sick while they are on vacation. So the best thing to do is find out as much as you can about the destination before you go. Is it safe to drink the water? Any food you should avoid? Going to your destination with a little bit of research can save you a lot of grief in the long-run.

Lost, damaged, and stolen luggage is another common claim, and there are a few things you can do to help avoid it from happening to you. Some things are pretty much common sense, but you would be surprised how many people forget to put tags on their bags! Make sure you remove old destination stickers, check in your bags early, avoid flights with tight connections, and head straight to the luggage area as soon as you land. And remember, as those announcements echo around the airport “do not leave your bags unattended”.

Lost or Stolen Credit cards and money are a huge problem for travellers, but the only thing you can really do here is use common sense. Keep a photocopy of you credit cards and ID in your bags, but other than that you just need to be careful.

Finally, cancelled flights are travel delays are something that is out of your control but a huge inconvenience. Always check with the airline a few days before and the day of your flight to make sure everything is going forward. Try to fly earlier in the day, midweek, and get to the airport early.

Hopefully you are never in a position where you have to make a claim on your travel insurance, but a little common sense and thinking ahead can save you time and money in the long term!

There are several types of credit cards for travelers. You can get hotel cars, airline cards, general travel cards and you can get so many rewards and freebies out of them that it doesn’t make any sense not to have one! Travel credit cards provide a great opportunity to earn free points that can be redeemed for airfare, hotels or cold hard cash. Here are some tips if you plan on getting a travel credit card:

First, you should get a card with huge sign bonus. Most travel credit cards offer joining bonuses of 20,000 or more miles! Don’t join one that doesn’t offer you anything or it will take a long time to exchange rewards for hotels, cash, or airfare. You want rewards now right?

Also, don’t forget to read the fine print. Are there are reward blackout dates, a fee structure, taxes, or other things the credit card company might try to sneak in there. Businesses don’t give away anything for free so for most cards they will try to sneak in some service charge. Compare the cards to make sure you pick one that doesn’t do anything sneaky.

I like cards with fees. I travel a lot and I don’t want to spend a long time earning points before my next trip. Fee cards have a much better rewards system than non-few cards. If you are a frequent traveler, it’s better to get a fee based card. Normally the first year’s fee is waived anyways. But more importantly, you’ll be able to rack up points to travel quicker. If you don’t travel a lot, it is probably not worth it to get a fee based card.

So which card should you get? A hotel card? A general travel card? An airline specific card? In order to decide, you need to consider how you will use the card. Are you loyal to one airline or airline network like the Star Alliance? Then you should get an airline card. If you are on the road for business a lot, then getting a hotel card would be perfect for you. For those who only care about price and not brand loyalty, a general card would be best. However, by getting a general travel rewards card you would have access to a wider range of brands and companies than if you had a brand specific card.

If you think about all of this before you get a travel credit card, you’ll be able to get the card that gives you the most value and rewards.