take care when taking out travel insurance
 

I have just had a lesson in reading the small print on insurance documents.
I travelled in southern Africa for 3 months earlier this year with a policy from sta travel and when I came to take out a new policy for the next leg of my journey I was told by sta that they would not cover me. When I pointed out that they already had they checked the recording of my phone call and told me that I had asked for cover to ride a "large" motorcycle, as I had not stated that it was above 125cc and had not noticed that on page 18 of 54 pages of small print the excusion of such bikes, this was my fault for failing to disclose.
I then went to Ensleigh and was very specific about where I intended to travel and my mode of transport, an R80G/S, after confering with a supervisor the salesman told me that I needed catagory 1 cover and insured me to this level.
Upon receiving my schedule I read it carefully and noticed that although catagory 1 covered me for large motorcycles, it did not cover me for "overlanding". After several phone calls which resulted in me being told by one person that I was insured and another that I was not, somebody looked up their definition of "overlanding" and it turns out that I was not covered and needed catagory 2 cover at nearly double the premium.
I hope that I am now covered.

Mark

Oh *great*!

I had exactly the same problem when renewing with STA (except the STA employee who took my details a year ago was a HUBB contributor and overlander herself so she *definitely* knew what kind of bike I was on...)

So I took a policy with Endsleigh instead.

(See this thread from Stagbeetle: http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...nsurance-27126 )

Where in the small print of my Endsleigh policy do I need to check the wording? To see which policy I have? Can you point me to the relevent paragraphs?

Cheers

--Mike

Thanks Mike and Mark...I'll check my policy extremely thoroughly. And I won't be going to STA.

Ensleigh small print
 

to Mike,
on your schedule it will state weather you have catagory 1 or 2 cover, catagory 1 does not cover "overlanding" Ensleighs definition of this seems to describe exactly what some of us like to do. The day after upgrading my cover to catagory 2, I was phoned by the original consultant who sold me the catagory 1 who had checked with a higher authority and said catagory 1 was sufficent, I pointed out the "overlanding" exclusion and he told me that this did not apply to me, I thought it did and paid the extra. It took my premium from about 300 pounds for 5 months to 500 pounds, a lot but I am now reassured that I am covered.
Mark