A few minutes checking your travel insurance could save you a lot of money — and stress.
Christmas is for seeing family, swapping presents and making memories. It’s not for spending hours in an airport, discovering your suitcase has gone missing or facing a hefty bill after an accident abroad.
For British expats in the Czech Republic, festive travel often means busy flights, tight connections and expensive last-minute alternatives. Travel insurance won’t prevent disruption, but the right policy can help soften the financial blow.
Your EHIC is not travel insurance
A European Health Insurance Card can help you access medically necessary state healthcare under local rules. It generally won’t cover private treatment or emergency transport home. Check your policy’s medical and repatriation limits, and make sure any relevant pre-existing conditions are declared.
If you travel several times a year, compare an annual multi-trip policy with buying cover for each journey.
What if your flight is delayed or cancelled?
Airlines may have duties to provide assistance, rerouting, refunds or compensation, depending on the circumstances. Insurance is separate, a delay doesn’t automatically mean you’re entitled to an insurance payment. Check whether your policy includes flight-disruption cover and read its trigger times and exclusions.
For example, AXA Assistance Czech Republic (which Aisa International can arrange) lists an optional air-travel benefit for eligible policies. Its published guidance refers to delays exceeding six hours and certain cancellations where replacement transport takes more than six hours. Published limits include CZK 500 per commenced hour for qualifying arrival delays (up to CZK 10,000) and CZK 5,000 for qualifying delayed baggage. Conditions and exclusions apply.
Lost luggage, stolen belongings and cancellation
A missing suitcase can mean buying clothes and toiletries; stolen belongings can mean replacing essentials; cancelling a trip can mean losing prepaid flights or accommodation. Suitable cover may help, but limits and exclusions matter.
- Delayed baggage: report it to the airline, obtain a Property Irregularity Report (PIR) and keep receipts for essential purchases.
- Lost or stolen items: check the overall baggage limit and the smaller limits that may apply to phones, jewellery, cash and other valuables.
- Trip cancellation: cover normally applies only to specific insured reasons, such as certain unexpected illnesses. Changing your mind is not usually enough.
Extras worth checking
Depending on your trip, you may want personal liability, missed-departure assistance, early-return costs, unused-holiday cover, winter-sports protection or rental-car excess cover. These may be optional or limited to particular policy tiers.
If you travel several times a year, compare an annual multi-trip policy with buying cover for each journey. Check the maximum length of each trip, destinations, age limits and medical conditions.
Before you leave: five quick checks
- Are all destinations and the full length of your trip covered?
- Are medical expenses and repatriation limits high enough?
- Are cancellation costs and baggage adequately covered?
- Do you need extra cover for flights, skiing, valuables or a hire car?
- Have you saved the emergency number and kept your policy details accessible?
The bottom line
Nobody buys travel insurance hoping to claim. You buy it because illness, accidents and disruption don’t follow a holiday schedule. This Christmas, check the small print before you fly — and make sure your travel plans include a safety net as well as a boarding pass. If you would like us to provide advice or a quote, please contact us.
