Travel
Unbelievable as it sounds, I know someone who got bitten by a pig in Thailand. The ladies at the hospital laughed their heads off, but it still took an extra rabies shot and antibiotics.
Whether or not your package includes insurance, buy your own travel insurance. I usually buy mine online after comparing different offers.
Check whether:
- The liability cover is high, in case you hurt someone.
- The medical expenses cover is high, and whether medical costs are reimbursed with no deductible (excess).
- The policy covers transporting your body home. It's usually an expensive service.
Read the terms and conditions. It may turn out you're not covered at all if you've been drinking. It may also turn out that if you fall off a rented scooter (whatever the engine size), they'll refuse to pay out because you don't have a motorcycle license. Best to ask about things like that beforehand.
Get vaccinated before you travel. It would be pretty dumb to die just because someone in a Facebook group said they never got vaccinated before going to Asia and everything was fine.
If you take a look at a map of rabies cases, Asia lights up red. My yellow vaccination booklet is stuffed to the brim. Better safe than sorry.
Take a photo of your luggage before you travel. If your luggage gets damaged, you have to report it right away at the destination airport. After that there's nothing you can do, and I only found that out after my brand-new suitcase got wrecked.
Know your rights. For long-delayed flights you're entitled to financial compensation. All it takes is filing a claim that cites the regulations.
Before you go, prepare a red emergency envelope in case the worst happens. Put in information about your insurance, finances, loans, bank accounts, passwords and anything else that might come in handy. Put it all on an encrypted drive (e.g. Kingston IronKey AES-256) and tell your loved ones where to find it and what the password is. You could keep it in a safe deposit box, for example, with access granted to a few people.
It's also a good idea to email your travel plans to someone close, so they know where you're going, where you're sleeping and who you're insured with.
Car
When insuring your car, pay attention to a few things:
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Does the valuation match what the car is actually worth? If it doesn't, ask the agent to tick all of your optional equipment. With premium brands, extras can make a big difference to the price. If it's still off from the market price, bring in an appraiser.
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Make sure to tick the 100% of the car's value option. It means the valuation made when you buy the policy stays valid for the whole policy period. Otherwise, when settling a claim, the car might be revalued, most likely for much less than before.
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A sum insured that doesn't shrink. If you have two claims in one year, the payout (the value of the car) doesn't go down.
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Check how much cheaper insurance is for cars with GPS tracking. In the first year the installation may not "pay for itself" yet, but the year after it will. It can't be a device you buy and install yourself, though. It has to be a subscription to professional monitoring, with a 24/7 monitoring center that alerts the police when the car is stolen.
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Give yourself some time and ask a few agents for quotes from different insurers. Check insurance comparison sites yourself, too. The price differences are surprisingly big. Some of the offers I got were three times higher than others.
Home
When insuring your home, check the terms carefully and find out whether the policy covers the stuff inside and up to what amount.
Got equipment you bought on a company invoice through your business? Regular insurance doesn't cover it at all; it needs separate insurance. Keep your purchase invoices in electronic form in the cloud (e.g. Dropbox).
Insurance is obviously a complicated topic, so do your own research and talk to an agent or someone who already has it figured out.