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Travel Insurance: Esure warns on travel medical costs, Tesco says baggage loss more common: Britons preparing to travel abroad, particularly when on holiday, are almost invariably upbeat. They are eager to visit the cafes of France, the wilds of Kenya or the streets of New York. Unfortunately, in all the excitement it is very easy to forget to make all the proper travel preparations - travel insurance foremost among them. Prudent Britons will carefully tailor their travel packages prior to setting off. The final cover that you choose should account for the places you intend to go to and the activities you will engage in.

The very first thing the traveller should prepare for is medical expenses. Accustomed to the National Health Service, Britons may be confounded by the costs of even some simple medical procedures abroad. This situation will be much aggravated if you have to spend an extended period in hospital overseas. In a 7 July press release, esure Head of travel insurance Mick Pickard noted that being ill abroad can not only ruin a holiday, but run up very expensive medical bills. Of the Top 10 sicknesses noted by esure in its release, several, such as dysentery, flu and food poisoning, could require such extended hospital stays.

Top 10 illnesses suffered by the holidaymakers surveyed:

1. Diarrhoea
2. Food poisoning
3. Sun burn
4. Heat stroke
5. Mosquito bites
6. Flu
7. Ear infection
8. Dysentery
9. Constipation
10. Alcohol poisoning

Getting sick is not one's only worry when going abroad, however. Tesco reminds us that there is also the risk of having luggage arrive safely and on time. In April the British media was full of stories about the lost luggage disaster at Heathrow's now-infamous Terminal 5. Luggage claims grew so large there that some insurers stopped covering baggage processing through that terminal altogether.

Yet, Association of European Airline (AEA) statistics relate the fact that in 2007 only 16.6 bags (per 1,000 passengers) were delayed. If the T5 event was unusual, and the AEA statistics are correct, is Tesco exaggerating? Not really. Because so many millions of Britons and other Europeans fly each year, according to SITA the cumulative costs of those delayed bags is a massive $US 2.5 billion per year.

On a personal level, lost or delayed baggage can seem catastrophic. We've all heard the anecdotal stories about the newlyweds who arrived in Spain without any of their bags or the businessperson who arrived in Los Angles without a spare suit or important documents. Formal statistics therefore back up the advice of esure and Tesco: before going abroad, be certain your travel insurance covers both medical and luggage expenses adequately. That way, you can have a sense of assurance going abroad and be prepared for the worst. †

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