More than one third of Spanish travelers are unaware of their insurance coverages

Traditionally, travel insurance has had a low penetration in Spain compared to other EU countries. The reason for this is closely linked to the lack of knowledge about this type of policy and the low perception of risk. This is clear from the latest study carried out by the comparator Rastreator.com.

Travel is becoming more and more common and, despite the crisis of recent years, this activity has been increasing again. In the first half of the year alone, more than 83 million trips were made, 4.6% more than in the same period of the previous year, according to the INE's Resident Tourism Survey.

According to the III Online Comparison Study Towards Smart Savings, conducted by Rastreator.com, travel insurance has been taken out by more than half of Spaniards (51.8%) at some point, despite the fact that there is still a great lack of knowledge about them. In fact, a 35% of respondents who currently have one say they are unaware of the coverages included.

Of the people who take out travel insurance, 23.6% 23.6% do so on a regular basis to be covered when traveling, the 43.4% have taken it out on one or two occasions and one in three (33%) only when it was included in their travel pack.

For their part, those who have not taken out this type of insurance allude to lack of knowledge of its advantages as the main reason (45%) or to the belief that travel does not entail risks, as stated by 16.6% of those surveyed.

Fernando Summers, CEO of Rastreator.com, adds that “some unforeseen events during the trip such as loss of luggage or cancellation of a flight can lead to very high extra expenses for consumers”.

More medical problems tend to be the main headache when traveling, especially on trips outside the European Union, where the traveler is not covered at all unless he/she takes out insurance for the occasion. This concern is also reflected in the survey, as the main occasion on which Spaniards say they have taken out travel insurance is for getaways outside the continent.

The second most insured type of trip are those of adventure or extreme activities, such as mountaineering, diving or skiing, as stated by 35.7%. At this point it is noteworthy that the men are less cautious than women, since únly 34.5% of them hire a for adventure travel, compared to 37% of women.

With regard to travel within the European Union, one in four travelers opt to take out travel insurance for that occasion and 14.4% for travel within Spain.