Ensure you’re insured

After wading through paperwork to send off Minnie’s passport application, it’s nice to find one piece of holiday bureaucracy which isn’t adding to my grey hairs – adding her to my travel insurance. Yes, she might be all of four months old when we fly out, but in the same way I always make sure I’m covered, I wouldn’t travel without insuring her.

It seems I’m unusual though, as a third of parents don’t take out insurance for the children – and a quarter of Britons don’t cover themselves at all, according to research from Asda Financial Services.

Rising premiums are behind some of the decisions, but given holiday costs and the potentially ruinous expense for medical repatriation (let alone replacing the contents of lost suitcases), it may not be the wisest saving.

Even if you’re travelling in Europe, and you’ve got your free EHIC (and really, if you haven’t, why on earth not?!), you won’t get the same level of cover.

Depending on your travel insurers, and the age of your children, there’s no reason it should cost a fortune anyway. I pay for an annual policy from Columbus Direct which covers both me and my husband (travelling together and separately) and after answering a few quick questions over email, they’ve added her on for the bargain price of zero pence.

Even if you don’t have an ongoing policy, the cost of insuring a family is likely to be similar to a meal out while you’re away, if not less, according to the supermarket, which has policies covering babies from birth.

And I’m hoping it will keep working like an umbrella on a cloudy day – make sure you’ve got it, and you won’t need it…

Image: theclyde/Flickr