Holidaymakers putting themselves at risk on city breaks

Research finds nearly half fail to take out travel insurance for city visits.

City breaks overtook beach holidays as the most popular choice for UK holidaymakers last year, says Post Office Money, and the trend looks likely to continue in 2015.

But new research reveals city break fans could be leaving themselves open to costly problems by not taking out travel insurance for their trip.

In a Post Office Money survey of over 2,000 people, one in 15 said they had fallen victim to crime on their last city break.

Yet while safety was an important factor when choosing a city visit for over half (55%) of respondents, nearly half (46%) failed to take out travel insurance.

Three in ten of those who failed to get cover for their visit said it never occurred to them to do so.

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The cost

The most common crime to hit city break travellers was theft.

Post Office Money found nearly a quarter (24%) had money and their wallet/purse stolen while between 14% and 19% had a credit card, passport, electrical device, mobile phone, clothing, handbag/briefcase, luggage, sunglasses or jewellery stolen.

Over three in five who suffered from a theft had to pay out to replace stolen items because they were not covered by travel insurance.

Below is a table of the average amounts holidaymakers had to stump up.

As you can see covering the cost of replacing stolen items for unprepared city travellers ranged from £302 for wallets with cash to £1,219 for sunglasses and £2,288 for jewellery.

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Travel insurance

Most travel insurance policies will provide you with cover for medical treatment and lost baggage as well as your personal belongings while away.

So it’s worth checking out quotes and purchasing cover before your next city break to avoid paying out yourself if things go wrong.

You can quickly compare costs using the lovemoney.com travel insurance comparison centre.

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