Cyclist - travel insurance

[Pumbaa]

This is probably more applicable to cyclist overlanders/tourers...

Has anyone had good or bad experience with their relevant choice of travel insurance?

Which company did you use in the end, and why did you choose them.

We'll spend about 12 months on the road in china, SE Asia and India, and I'm sure we'll be 'taking advantage' of cover at some point....

Just as an example of the importance of having travel insurance...

I read on someones blog about the couple who got attacked by some dogs a few days ago when they cycled passed. The back of the womans lower leg got a nice big bite (with bits hanging on by the skin) and also other parts of her leg and she needed about 200 stiches. Her husband also got his fair share. This happened in Turkey btw. Luckily for them , their costs were only about $50, as the hospitals/doctors didn't charge them.

So who should I avoid?

[McCrankpin]

For what it's worth, I've used CTC (Cycle Touring Club), for 5 months in N America and about 4 months in Spain.
Don't know how good they are as never had to claim. But their reputation seems good which is why I chose them.

Completely irrelevant but I like the memory - the 'theft of bicycle' section says that anywhere out-of-doors the cycle must be chained to an immovable object - if it's stolen in such circumstances they'd need to see evidence of a broken chain or lock.
Well I spent 5 months in 'small-town America' where there's more or less zero crime. I stopped in a small place in Montana or Idaho and chained my bike to a lampost thinking 'this is pretty stupid, who's going to steal this??'
That was reinforced about 10-fold when a guy on a big Harley full dresser, all leather and dripping with chrome, stopped on the other side of the road to go into a deli. Just as I'd wrestled the chain through the wheels and locked my bike, I felt a real looney as I watched him get off his bike and walk into the deli, leaving the Harley engine running and whatever key makes it go still in place.


I went into an 'outdoor outfitters' shop for a browse for a while, came out and had to unlock my little bicycle while the Harley was still rumbling away across the road completely unattended.
The wonders of small-town-America!
(Not so 'green' though)

[maja]

A bit about small print which I have mentioned on the HUBB several times. I was with World Nomads for several years and had no reason to make a claim until I did, thank goodness. The main reason I stayed with this company was that it allowed extensions on line if you over-ran on your trip which most companies did not. I was heading north just outside of Vera Cruz in Mexico when I was hit by a drunk driver whilst waiting at traffic lights, he headed for the hills and I headed for the local A&E confident that World Nomads would look after me. When the med admin department rang World Nomads the company refused to pay up as I was riding a bike greater than 125cc which to be fair a BMW R1200GS is. It transpired that while I was on the road, World Nomad changed their UK agent and they decided that nasty big bikes were dangerous to ride round the world on and dropped the cc from unlimited if you were licensed for it to tiddlers which they must have decided were safer. Of all this I was blissfully ignorant until the accident however they maintained that they had informed me of the change and the fact that I was no longer insured if I persisted in riding my big terribly dangerously sized bike so in more than one way I didn´t have a leg to stand on, at least not for a while. I had to pay for my treatment and hospital care, which I could not fault at all in fact if you are going to have an accident I can recommend Mexico in general and Xalapa in particular, they were great and when they found out what my insurance company had done they halved the bill. I later found out that technically I had been informed that my policy had changed from the one that I had bought before setting off overseas, they had sent the notification of changes to my travel insurance to my home address whilst I was still travelling. My advice if you're a Brit, leave this Aussie company to the Aussies and don't assume that just because you took it out on line that they will inform you of changes on line and yes, I did take them to the Ombudsman with no luck. Ride safe.