During the preparation phase for our move to Montreal, one of the most important things we needed to investigate and organise was a fully comprehensive travel insurance policy, no small feat given that I am, obviously, a diabetic.

Fortunately for me, I used to work as a travel agent for STA who primarily focus on the student and youth travel market and I often got stuck in arguments with ‘budget conscious travelers’ (to put it politely) who were never too keen on spending what amounts to a decent chunk of money on something so ethereal as travel insurance.

To these people I always had four stock standard responses:

1. If you can’t afford travel insurance, you can’t afford to travel
2. You might be able to control your actions, but you can’t stop everyone else for being an idiot so why take the risk
3. Don’t get insurance policies from your bank’s credit card, they are a bank not an insurance company.
4. Get a policy that covers you while you are still in NZ in case anything ever happens before you go

The first of these two are as true now as they were of course so there was absolutely no way that I was going to go to Canada without travel insurance – and so began the research.

I looked at 5 companies in total which I called in every case after having read through their policy information online to get a feel for the level of cover that was available from them:

• Mike Henry
• QBE Insurance
• House of Travel
• State Insurance and
• Southern Cross travel insurance

Below, I’ve broken down the main points that I found either good or bad about the policies offered. I was looking specifically at cover for the big D and for working. (Bear in mind that there were two adults away for 12 months in the most expensive area of the world for travel insurance policies so the costs are rather high!)

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State Insurance: www.state.co.nz

The only reason I looked at State was because we had contents insurance with them but their travel policy was very good actually.

Excess: $100 – $500
Inclusions: Working (with an increased excess for manual labour), sports like skiing, running, biking and so on.
Exclusions: Insulin and diabetes related stuff, base jumping etc
Surcharge for diabetes: $50
Underwriter: IAG
Rating: AA
Cost: $3,286.00 (including an excess buyout)

House Of Travel: www.houseoftravel.co.nz

The policy with these guys was good but the lady never called me back so I didn’t end up getting any more information from them to be able to go further. The underwriter was very good though and I would say that they were second on my list.

Excess: approx. $500 – $1,000
Inclusions: White collar jobs, sports in general.
Exclusions: Manual labour
Surcharge for diabetes: $50
Underwriter: Mondial insurance
Rating: AAA
Cost: $3,010

Southern Cross: www.scti.co.nz

A good policy but there were a lot of little details that I needed to wade through for this policy. Once I had, it was good but it it so expensive it wasn’t a real possibility for me.

Excess: $100 – $1000
Inclusions: White collar jobs, sports in general including “bungee jumping, hiking without ropes , parachute jumping, paragliding, scuba diving, skydiving and white water rafting etc…with a licensed and approved operator”. Skiing  and snow-boarding are covered but only if on a “recognised, commercial field”.

Exclusions: Professional or competitive sports and base jumping. “Professional sport, heavy manual and hazardous jobs are always excluded and cover for personal liability does not apply for work related claims. If you are undertaking manual work overseas then you must pay the Manual Work Surcharge or you will not be covered for any claims relating to this work. All work is considered upon application and cover for work is at our discretion”.

Surcharge for diabetes: $50
Underwriter: Southern Cross themselves underwrite their policy.
Rating: A+
Cost: $3,960 with a $100 excess.

PLEASE NOTE: FOLLOWING CONTACT FROM A REPRESENTATIVE AT SOUTHERN CROSS, THE DETAILS FOR SOUTHERN CROSS HAVE BEEN UPDATED as at 6th September 2010.

Mike Henry: www.mikehenry.co.nz

I don’t have too much information on these guys cos they were rude, expensive and wanted way too much information like where were were going to live (the actual address) where we would be working, what the closest hospital to us was going to be, all sorts of crazy information on the diabetes and lots of other small details. It all felt waaaaay too complicated so I just didn’t bother going any further. They were also the most expensive of all the companies which all together gave me the impression that they would be a total nightmare if anything actually happened.

Excess: Don’t know
Inclusions: ??
Exclusions: ??
Surcharge for diabetes: ??
Underwriter: IAG
Rating: AA
Cost: $4,355!!!! (excluding insulin pump)

QBE Insurance: www.qbe.co.nz

Excess: $250
Inclusions: Everything (with no additional for working)
Exclusions: Rock climbing, base jumping – nothing else pretty much.
Surcharge for diabetes: $40
Underwriter: QBE Insurance Limited
Rating: A+
Cost: $2,874.20 (inc insulin pump)

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As you can see, there was a huge amount of variation in the market in terms of both prices and the amount of cover that was offered, more than I can put in this post actually so I would recommend doing a good amount of research – cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean worse.

I didn’t find anyone that covered insulin or cannula unsurprisingly but there was a company with a $2000 excess on diabetes related stuff which was ludicrous.

All of the companies had discounts for buying online too so I  ended up doing all the research in person by talking to people and then went and purchased online once I knew exactly what I needed (which saved me over $1,200 so it’s worth making the effort to get to a computer and process it there).

In the end, I went with QBE because they were incredibly comprehensive (the best of the lot), cheap (again the best of the lot), very friendly, answered all my questions without having to look stuff up which gave me a lot of confidence in them and what’s more I had been covered by them before on a trip to Mongolia, Russia and China so I already had a relationship with them and knew they were good.

You are all smart people so will do your own research and make your own decisions but this is the process I went through and I hope the information above is helpful!

- Aaron

P.S. There was no agenda here so the information is without bias and may have changed since I looked into all this in around June 2010!

P.P.S.  Well done if  you made it through this massive post!