Does anyone have any experience with Insurances?

I mean you had to use it coz your gear got lost/stolen or demaged or injured yourself/got sick and needed medical treatment overseas?
Im going to Lanka in 3 weeks and Im thinking of getting one.
They all sound good till you lodge your claim.

Cheers heaps!!!

Always had good experience with Travel Insurance Direct - claimed a couple of times on car insurance excess costs, without an issue.

... for my experiences, home insurance good, travel insurance not good.

Home Insurance and kite gear related story, I've had a few break ins over the years with some kite gear taken, lucky for me nothing of real value to me as my good gear was usually in my car so what was nicked was my back up old stuff anyway. On one occasion, they pinched my North race board so clearly the douche bags had no idea what they were taking, who in their right mind take a race board???? No good for wakeboarding or even paddling around on,,,, dumb-arses!! Anyway, when the insurance company coughed up, I got a comfy sofa ride Sector instead and way loved it more than the race board so it was a win win for me, much preferred the Sector.

Travel insurance was a sh!t experience. The first time in 10 years of kitesurfing holidays and first time I had to make a claim, not on kite gear but on my camera gear. As I was unloading my kite gear onto the side of the road, as I had my back turned and was about to turn around and grab my camera bag, the damn a hole taxi drive took off with the bag still on the back seat. I called the cops and taxi company etc etc but they had no record of taxi no. 26 ever leaving the airport. Anyway, I notified all relevant people but when I got back to Oz and made the claim, the insurance company made me jump through hoops then to add insult, the little clause I didn't read in the fine print was market value on goods stolen only, not replacement value so I only got back 17% which is not even enough to replace one camera let alone 3 cameras plus 2 ipods and etc etc.

Of course I complained and tried to whine on forums about it but I found out that no matter which one you choose, they all had one parent company so bagging One Choice or People's Choice or what ever they called themselves, makes no difference as they are all connected anyway so throwing out there, "I'll never use you again", "I'm going down the road to your competitor" 'aint gunna work.

Anyway, lesson learnt, read the fine print next time.

Robbie

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GC1974 said..
Does anyone have any experience with Insurances?

I mean you had to use it coz your gear got lost/stolen or demaged or injured yourself/got sick and needed medical treatment overseas?
Im going to Lanka in 3 weeks and Im thinking of getting one.
They all sound good till you lodge your claim.

Cheers heaps!!!

Didn't think of looking into this a bit more before you booked your trip?

Some insurance companies use what is called an "averaging" clause so if you insure your camera gear for a grand but it's worth 10 then they only pay 10%. It's dodgy but legal. This to deter people from underinsuring (and therefore paying a lower premium). Not all contracts have this. I got caught out with this with a removalist insurance when I tried to make a claim on a damaged table, even though the damage was less than insurance amount, they looked at the total stuff I had and said it was worth more than what I insured for.

I use the free travel insurance on my gold and platinum visa/mc. Pay for your tickets or bookings with it and you are covered. I have had to use it several times over the years and it's never been an issue. They are backed by big companies....QBE and Allianz. I travel a lot, and it's great unless you are going on a 6 month or more trip....then you might need something else

Read the fine print for sports, some companies exclude kitesurfing, some will cover one year but not the next, ive always been happy with TID and had a couple of hassle free claims.

I was always told Covermore are among the best. Out of dozens of trips O/S i've only needed to claim once and it was through them.

I was medivac'd out of a tiny PNG jungle village that was 3-4 days walk to the nearest road. They were exceptional to deal with and from memory the final bill came up just shy of 20k.

As above, i think you need to make sure whoever you choose will cover you.

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Peahi said..
Some insurance companies use what is called an "averaging" clause so if you insure your camera gear for a grand but it's worth 10 then they only pay 10%. It's dodgy but legal. This to deter people from underinsuring (and therefore paying a lower premium). Not all contracts have this. I got caught out with this with a removalist insurance when I tried to make a claim on a damaged table, even though the damage was less than insurance amount, they looked at the total stuff I had and said it was worth more than what I insured for.

I'm by no means an advocate for insurance companies, infact my insurance costs annually make me sick...

But if I'm getting your post correctly, if you tell your insurance company your camera is worth $1000, why would you expect them to pay $10000 when its lost or damaged?????

Id have a guess that if it wasn't for dodgy insurance claims the average insurance premium would be way way less...

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Surfer62 said..
Read the fine print for sports, some companies exclude kitesurfing, some will cover one year but not the next, ive always been happy with TID and had a couple of hassle free claims.

I use world nomads for this reason- you can specifically pick the sports you take part in and will insure for those. It has every extreme sport you can think of listed (snow kiting, kiting, rock climbing, BASE jumping, ice climbing etc etc etc).

never claimed with them but read the fine print pretty thoroughly when I was doing a backcountry snow kiting trip and it seemed pretty solid.

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tgcp said..

Peahi said..
Some insurance companies use what is called an "averaging" clause so if you insure your camera gear for a grand but it's worth 10 then they only pay 10%. It's dodgy but legal. This to deter people from underinsuring (and therefore paying a lower premium). Not all contracts have this. I got caught out with this with a removalist insurance when I tried to make a claim on a damaged table, even though the damage was less than insurance amount, they looked at the total stuff I had and said it was worth more than what I insured for.

I'm by no means an advocate for insurance companies, infact my insurance costs annually make me sick...

But if I'm getting your post correctly, if you tell your insurance company your camera is worth $1000, why would you expect them to pay $10000 when its lost or damaged?????

Id have a guess that if it wasn't for dodgy insurance claims the average insurance premium would be way way less...

My understanding it's more along the lines of, you've got $100k worth of contents in your house that you only insure for $50k because it's cheaper and you figure you'll never have to claim the whole lot in one hit. You lose all your toys, say $20k (full price retail cost ;) that you want to claim, they can look at it and argue you're under insured overall by 50% and on that $20k claim they'll only pay out $10k.

Insurance is a rip-off and expensive until you really need it. I can't believe people still travel to less-developed countries and countries without the reciprocal health care agreement without insurance. It only cost me about $250 to get eight weeks of cover for Nepal including high altitude helicopter rescue if I needed it.

www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/medicare/reciprocal-health-care-agreements

Or you could always crowdfund your medivac...

Yes interestingly a lot of companies cover hospital bills ,lost luggage ,delays etc but don't cover medivac flights out,essential when travelling to less developed countries.
If you make a claim for lost or stolen goods such as cameras make sure you provide all the documentation needed plus signed statements from anyone that is aware of the details such as local police,manager or owners of where your staying otherwise it drags on and on as you jump through the hoops.It took me 6 months to receive payment for a stolen camera and i had all documentation in place from the get go,I received about $650 for a $900 camera that was 3 years old so don't expect to get new for old.

I had a phone stolen overseas, reported to the police, had all docs, etc. The insurance company tried to apply the depreciation to my phone in line with the tax rates making my phone worth $30 or so in their calculations. I bought a second hand Iphone from a private person (similar to what was stolen) for $400 and received the full amount from the insurance company. My argument was 'show me where I can buy equivalent to what was stolen for $30' and they couldn't. So they paid in the end

Lodged a claim last year with Go Insurance and it was paid out quick and easy - no questions asked. If you contact them they can add injury from kitesurfing to yourself but it doesn't cover public liability. The kitesurfing optional cover wasn't that expensive.

www.goinsurance.com.au/