Protect your gadgets when travelling abroad this summer

With the summer holidays arriving next month, millions of us will be taking flight to warmer climes to enjoy a well-deserved break. But do you know if your travel policy will cover your smartphone getting lost, stolen or damaged while you’re abroad?

Luggage isn’t just about sunglasses and sunscreen anymore – many of us will be packing go pros, digital cameras, smartphones and tablets to make sure the memories of a lifetime last forever too.  But despite this, most travel insurance policies still only provide for a single gadget, and in the majority of policies, up to a maximum cost of £500 – around half the price of the latest smartphones available on the market today.

Eleana Martyn at Protect Your Gadget said: “Whilst we all like to think we’re careful with our mobile phones, our research* shows that we are regularly dropping and drowning them beyond recovery, with one in four smartphone owners admitting to damaging their phone beyond repair. Anecdotally, some of the respondents talked about dropping their phone in the pool or accidentally taking it in the pool and not realising they had it with them.

“Leaving your phone out in the sun can also cause long-term damage, which is easy enough to do if you’re relaxing by the pool and your phone is next to you. Again, this would generally be covered under a gadget insurance policy under ‘mechanical failure’.”

Protect Your Gadget found that, while requesting ‘add on’ options to ensure multiple gadgets are covered in a single trip were available from most travel insurers, they generally offered limited value financially, with specifics around each and every item required in order for the cover to be effective.

Policies available via travel insurers ranged from £6 to more than £40, with coverage for a single gadget offered in each case of no more than £750 as a general maximum. Laptops were also specified as not being covered in some cases – especially important for those travelling abroad with work.

The majority of specialist gadget policies, meanwhile, were found to provide for foreign cover as standard for 90 days or more in most cases, with some offering protection for multiple devices for as long as 120 days of being abroad.

Eleana continued: “Our findings show that travel insurance cover is generally limited to one gadget per trip, even where specific gadget protection is requested during the sign-up process.  Making sure phones, tablets and digital cameras and a host of other digital devices which have become a standard fixture of many holidays are specifically covered is a must, therefore, in order to properly protect yourself from greater expenditure along the way.”

Policies for gadget insurance can start from as little as £ p/month. A quote for insurance for an iPhone 7 128GB comes in at £6.49 p/month and automatically includes worldwide coverage for a period of up to 90 days. More information can be found at www.protectyourgadget.com.