# Travel insurance when living in the UK on spouse visa



## saw87 (Dec 2, 2012)

My husband arrived in the UK last month on a spouse visa. We have booked to go to the Caribbean for our honeymoon in July and now I'm trying to find a travel insurance policy to cover us for the trip. However all of the companies I have come across online so far say the travellers must be permanent residents of the UK or have lived in the UK for at least 6 months of the previous 12 months.... My husband is neither of these at the moment!

Has anyone come across this problem before? I'd be grateful if anyone could recommend a company who provides cover for our circumstances.

Many thanks!


----------



## Bethany7 (Jan 7, 2013)

Hi Saw,

I previously used World nomads while being a Turkish resident, it's a bit more expensive than the others but has had really good reviews. Also, I have Allianz through my job and there is a travel insurance option, perhaps your husband still qualifies? My Turkish isn't good enough to decipher the website


----------



## LaraMascara (Oct 19, 2012)

If you have a joint credit card, or a joint bank account that includes an overdraft, it sometimes has travel insurance - so check that too!

We were going to buy it for our trip to NYC but then I realised my Lloyds TSB bank account with overdraft covered us both! All we did was use it to but the tickets, and we got covered.


----------



## WestCoastCanadianGirl (Mar 17, 2012)

NatWest also offers a range of cover on some of its products... my husband updated his travel policy on his NatWest account to include me as well.

Are you a UK citizen? If so, your husband may be eligible for a European Health Insurance Card, by virtue of being married to you and living in the UK... the card is valid for 5 years and can be used in the EU. 

I don't know if there's a waiting period to be able to join (my husband applied on Thursday night and I've been here since mid-October and have an NHS and NiN... we used our NiN to apply), but seeing as it is free and provides basic cover (to augment your travel insurance), it wouldn't hurt to enquire.


----------



## WestCoastCanadianGirl (Mar 17, 2012)

FWIW, World Nomads UK site.. I've heard good things about them... apparently Lonely Planet recommends them.

ETA: you may want to make sure that you have trip cancellation cover due to severe weather... the Atlantic hurricane season starts today (i.e. 01 June) and while the action doesn't usually start until August (i.e. the storm activity starts to increase) it is _not_ unusual for there to be active cyclones in July (I lived in the Cayman Islands for a few years, arriving in early July, and within two weeks of my arrival, there were two storms that had made it to the Atlantic Caribbean basin).


----------



## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

EHIC is useless for the Caribbean honeymoon the OP is going on, but otherwise it's a good thing to have and it's free. Remember some EEA countries don't accept EHIC card issued to non-UK, non-EU citizens, esp newer EU states. In any case, holiday/travel insurance is strongly recommended.

As for residential qualifications for getting travel insurance in UK, the one thing to bear in mind is the country of residence determines where you are going to be repatriated in case of medical emergency. For most types of claim, your exact visa status won't be an issue but if you make a big claim (say over several thousand pounds), they may look into it closely (to see if they can get out of paying out). There are some policies, meant for gap-year students, backpackers and others without permanent UK address. I think Columbus Insurance offers one.


----------



## lovestravel (Apr 9, 2012)

We bought an annual travel policy with Avanti which was super affordable and had good coverage. My sister works in travel and she also recommended medjet assist for medical evacuation especially if travelling to countries where medical care won't be first world quality. We did not buy it because it was a bit expensive. I have always bought annual travel insurance. We travel frequently and find it is less expensive to go ahead with an annual policy rather than for each trip.


----------



## WestCoastCanadianGirl (Mar 17, 2012)

Agreed about the annual policy being less expensive than a per-trip policy.... when I lived in Canada, I was a little paranoid as far as travel insurance went (I had coverage with Pacific Blue Cross through work and had a second annual policy for stuff not covered by the Blue Cross policy) because we lived close to the Canada/US border and crossed over fairly frequently (cheaper petrol just over the border). 

Even though we didn't plan on getting injured whilst down there (nor did we ever), one just never knew what might happen mere kilometers from home (the petrol stations were walking distance from the border, and a popular shopping mall was about 20 minutes by car beyond that) and we were collectively frightened about the high cost of US health care (BC health care isn't the greatest but, as residents, emergency health care is included in the monthly premium) so we carried annual cover policies just for peace of mind and for the luxury of going away at a moment's notice (i.e. 11pm one night decide we want to go down to Bellingham or Seattle early the next morning to do some shopping).


----------



## saw87 (Dec 2, 2012)

Thanks for all the replies!

LaraMascara, I get free European travel insurance with my Santander current account and I've just applied this week to add my husband to the account. Maybe it would be possible to pay extra to upgrade this to Worldwide cover?

WCCG, thanks for reminding me about the EHIC, I'd completely forgotten about that. My husband already has his NHS and NI numbers so hopefully should be eligible. As Joppa says, it's no good for this trip but useful to have for future travels. Oh and I hope those storms you mention miss us but will certainly look into if the policy would cover for that type of event :-/

Bethany and lovestravel, many thanks for your recommendations, I will have a look at the companies you mention.

Hope we can get this sorted, I'm literally counting down the days to be on that beach


----------

