It appears that around 500,000 people from the UK lose their passport each year while on holiday, with a subsequent loss, according to the Halifax, of over 1.7 million days as they wait to be allowed to come home.
The extra costs of staying abroad, including additional accommodation, flights and so on add up to nearly GBP390 million, or just over GBP130 per person. Advice from the Halifax is to use the hotel safe or safekeeping place in the room for their documents. They should also be aware that one in ten of the lost passports are actually stolen whilst outdoors, so being careful and discreet is important so as not to raise attention.
One further idea, this time from a Halifax travel insurance expert, is to take several copies of the back page of the passport and keep them in a host of different places. This way at least there will be some ID that will help get things sorted out.
According to the Post Office Insurance division spending on travel has remained constant, with no falls in currency or insurance transactions over the last couple of months.
Post Office insurance sales are unchanged while Euro currency sales are actually up compared with the same time last year, this even though the pound has weakened against the Euro in recent months. Figures show the precise change to be 3.2 percent over June and July.
According to the information gained Post Office Insurance customers are heading for the usual holiday spots such as Spain, Greece and France. The flight is not too long and they are pretty much assured great weather.
Marks and Spencer are very generously offering a discount of 20 percent on travel insurance, on top of any other discounts currently applicable.
A spokesman for Marks and Spencer announced the promotion and confirmed that this 20 percent offer is in addition to the 5 percent discount currently given to customers buying their travel insurance online. The offer is also very well time, coming as it does at the beginning of the school holidays.
The cover provided by the Marks and Spencer travel insurance product is very good too, with up to GBP10 million of medical cover, GBP50,000 for personal accidents and GBP6,000 in case the holiday has to be cancelled or curtailed.
