Travel Insurance for Interrailing - Advice Appreciated

[styles]

I always go for the zero excess option; it's paid for itself many times over.

That's the thing, policy wordings always say you should try to mitigate your loss - that's what I was doing by spending half a day recovering the pass. But they then thought it'd be fair to exclude my claim because I'd gone and done that!

I'll know for next time that insurance companies will always punish you for trying to do the right thing...

I hadn't even realised they offered a £0 excess option, fair enough then!

But yeah, I think even the best insurance companies will chance their arm at denying claims sometimes. We put in a house insurance claim for water damage to a ceiling, with a photo of the ceiling having collapsed. We only really wanted the cost of a plasterer to be covered to patch it after we knocked off the leak. Wasn't even bothered about it being painted, can do that myself. But the insurance company's immediate response was to ask what we did to mitigate the leak. Well, if we'd known there was a leak, obviously I'd have patched it or for more complicated work called a plumber - we're not exactly going to see a leak and think oh right I guess I'll leave that for a fortnight and it might fix itself! And this was from a pretty reputable insurance company. Thankfully I think that's the only insurance claim problem I've had.

 

[blimmo]

It's peace of mind like you say,

I agree medical insurance is pretty important since you likely can't just pay out of pocket for the inevitable costs of a serious injury. But my piece of mind for missed connections, lost gadgets etc. is just a few thousand £s in a savings account. I don't think there's much point buying expensive insurance to ensure you insure everything that might go wrong when you can simply self insure for cheaper. Maybe if you go on a 1 week interrail trip every other month the insurance will be priced lower than your expected costs but for a normalish trip the insurance really seems unlikely to be worth it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Sep 2026 ==

But yeah, I think even the best insurance companies will chance their arm at denying claims sometimes.

And even if it isn't cheaper this is another reason that self insuring is appealing

 

[Watershed]

It's mentioned above the form, though I initially overlooked it as well as all my previous claims were made on the day of travel.

I don't think they can impose a limit like that outside the pass conditions. There is already a condition that says you have 3 months to submit a claim, that would be the place to say it if they wanted this to be a real condition.

 

[DanielB]

Last week they finally processed my claims from 27/7, so there's hope...

My claims from 31/7 (filed 1/8) was processed today, so they appear to process one day each weekday.