Travel insurance - recommendations?

[AuntieMabel]

I'm about to leave for a 6-9 month stint in Singapore. I've been looking at options for travel insurance to cover our trips around the region.

What's the rough cost of annual multi-trip insurance from there? And is there any firm you'd recommend? (or, conversely, suggest I steer clear of).

Annoyingly I can't get a quote online until I have a full Singapore address, which I won't have until I get there. So would appreciate your input.

[ecureilx]

I'm about to leave for a 6-9 month stint in Singapore. I've been looking at options for travel insurance to cover our trips around the region.

What's the rough cost of annual multi-trip insurance from there? And is there any firm you'd recommend? (or, conversely, suggest I steer clear of).

Annoyingly I can't get a quote online until I have a full Singapore address, which I won't have until I get there. So would appreciate your input.

you can't get travel insurance in SG unless you have some residency / pass

the exception is / was MSIG.

lowest cost is Direct Asia, though benefits / coverage maybe not what you are looking for.

if you just need a simple cover they will do

but if you are looking for less deductibles and more coverage, look around ....

[PNGMK]

Most online airticket bookings direct with an airline allow you an option to buy basic travel insurance as an add-on. That may do until you are more settled.

[curiousgeorge]

Between $200 and $600 for an annual policy, based upon the level of cover you want and the geographical region.

If you look at the Citibank webpage you can see premiums without applying. They are underwritten by ace insurance and are as about as good as any of them when claiming.

[Girl_Next_Door]

We saw this NTUC advert on movie theatres and thought it was good. When the husband checked for details, its largely the same as the policy that we have, just good marketing.

Our annual travel insurance is with tenet (bought online) since 2009. I have claimed different occasions (pick pocketed, twice for flight cancellation, once for volcano eruption hence flight cancelled, another is for accident and can't travel) since I took with them and never had an issue with the claims. Same reason why we are still using them.

[ecureilx]

Most online airticket bookings direct with an airline allow you an option to buy basic travel insurance as an add-on. That may do until you are more settled.

the insurance that comes together / offered with flights, offer limited coverage ..

[PNGMK]

Most online airticket bookings direct with an airline allow you an option to buy basic travel insurance as an add-on. That may do until you are more settled.

the insurance that comes together / offered with flights, offer limited coverage ..

True but better than nothing.

[JR8]

I'm about to leave for a 6-9 month stint in Singapore. I've been looking at options for travel insurance to cover our trips around the region.

What's the rough cost of annual multi-trip insurance from there? And is there any firm you'd recommend? (or, conversely, suggest I steer clear of).

Annoyingly I can't get a quote online until I have a full Singapore address, which I won't have until I get there. So would appreciate your input.

Are either you or your husband qualified SCUBA divers? As Divers Alert Network (aka DAN, a non-profit org) offer very competitive insurance in parallel with membership. I paid approx S$140 last time, for annual multi-trip, 24hr helplines, everything up to global evacuation for dive medicine, and for dive-trip and non-dive trips there's what one might call 'standard holiday insurance cover' and so on.

I'm due to renew in October and will add my non-diving wife to the policy. And as she's excluded from a material element of the possible risk, I'd expect the cost of adding her to be some fraction of my cost. It's a veritable bargain in this day and age.

http://www.danap.org/index.php

[AuntieMabel]

Thanks all. I'll take a look at those recommendations. Just looking for standard annual travel, non-US, for cancellation/theft/etc.

(We don't scuba, else that'd be a good option... sadly I buggered my eardrums some years ago so I'm not allowed).

Thank you!

[the lynx]

The ones purchased with flight booking not only have limited coverage, they also only cover for that single trip.

You may consider Ace's Got-It-Covered travel insurance if you are looking at multi-trip travel insurance for affordable price. I got mine when Standard Charted had a promotion for card holders at $88 annually. Now it is $128 annually. And so far so good. I claimed twice so far (misdirected baggage, flight cancellation). But you need to be a resident in Singapore to apply (in your case, with your foreign employment visa).

My only peeve is that it doesn't list volcano eruption as one of the claimable natural disasters. Gave me a heart attack when the customer service officer dropped that bomb on me when I was in Iceland few weeks ago, in between two eruptions on top of that.

Thank goodness, I never needed the cover in the end as the eruptions were/are without ash cloud (which could have start the no-fly-zone episode again like in 2010), and the lava flow was towards the opposite direction from where I was. But I will remember this the next time I fly around volcano-peppered regions.

[JR8]

@ Lynx
For this reason I take a hard-copy of my travel insurance policy with me when I travel. This way I can carefully review it's terms/exclusions before I first make contact with them. Can't recall resorting to that though, but better forearmed.

I'm surprised that the volcano issue was excluded. Perhaps it falls into the black-hole category of exclusions 'Act of God'?

[the lynx]

@ Lynx
For this reason I take a hard-copy of my travel insurance policy with me when I travel. This way I can carefully review it's terms/exclusions before I first make contact with them. Can't recall resorting to that though, but better forearmed.

I'm surprised that the volcano issue was excluded. Perhaps it falls into the black-hole category of exclusions 'Act of God'?

Oh I have mine in electronic form so that I can access wherever and whenever I am. Just that it didn't cross my mind that volcano eruption is excluded.

Our friends joked that it might have been written by Singaporeans because that's the only thing that Singapore doesn't have (volcano).

[RaisinTea]

Generally, depending on the destination, I assess accordingly to the risks I will face. Theft or earthquakes or... inefficient city where flights, trains or transports will get cancelled... I then make the call respectively. I'll then compare the cost of each concern across the different insurance and see what's the best coverage a certain firm has to offer. MSIG is pretty good I'd say!