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Other Insurance Costs affecting Household Budgets

Other insurance expenses include premiums paid for travel insurance, GAP insurance, pet insurance, and golf insurance. These type of insurance products are designed to cover losses or expenses which may not be covered by other insurance.

Other Insurance in Detail

Let's look at some common types of other insurance.

Travel Insurance:

Travel insurance covers any expenses or losses incurred while travelling abroad. These include expenses on medical emergencies and costs of cutting short/cancelling/delaying the trips. Traven insurance also covers losses that may result from a lawsuit abroad for damaging someone's property or injuring someone. Travel insurance is also useful if your bag is lost or stolen abroad.

Example 1:

Flexicover, a specialist provider of travel insurance, offers different products such as single trip, annual plan for multiple trips, long stay, winter sports, and gap year. The single trip policy covers single trips of up to 100 days by individuals of up to 85 years of age. The policy covers up to 120 sporting activities for free. Certain policies also cover scheduled airline failure. Premiums are lesser if combined policies are taken for families, couples or single parent families.

In 2011, nearly 26.2 million consumers had bought travel insurance. Average premium for travel insurance during the same year was £24 for an annual cover and £35 for a single trip cover.

GAP Insurance:

GAP Insurance, or guaranteed asset protection for car pays for risks, which are not covered by car insurance. GAP insurance is applicable only in case the vehicle is written off completely either due to an accident or theft.

Example 2:

Someone has taken a Vauxhall Agila worth £7,691 on finance for five years. Suppose, at the end of the second year, the vehicle is stolen or damaged completely due to an accident resulting in its book value becoming zero. In such an event, the car insurance policy will cover the loss only up to the car's present market value, or let's say £3,000 at the end of three years. However, the car owner may have an obligation to pay back £4,000 to the finance company. So not only the owner has lost the car but also has a shortfall of £1,000 to pay the finance company. This is where GAP insurance comes into the picture and covers the loss of £1,000.

As per a GAP insurance comparison site gapinsurance.co.uk, a three-year cover can cost in the range of £101 to £248.40 for vehicle values of up to £22,995. The maximum claim limit is £15,000. The demand for GAP insurance is increasing with nearly 70% of cars in the UK being bought on finance. Visit gapinsurance.co.uk to know more about GAP insurance.

Pet Insurance:

Pet insurance covers the cost of treatment of pets. In 2012, more than 2.7 million people in the UK had insurance for their cats and dogs. Pet insurance expenses have been increasing with some pet owners paying annual premiums as high as £3,420.

Example 3:

Argos Pet Insurance has different policies such as multi-pet insurance, cat insurance, and dog insurance. Cat insurance premiums start from £4.15 for the silver plan to £5.81 for the platinum plan. Dog insurance premiums are minimum £6.09 each month for the silver plan and £9.77 for the platinum plan.

Our household budget calculator can be of help to calculate the role of other insurance in your household budget.