Southern Cross reveals top 10 most expensive domestic travel insurance claims

Before the holidays, Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) CEO Andrew Hall reminded Australians that that travel insurance is as essential as a passport if they are going overseas. However, with the uncertainty brought by the new variant of COVID-19, many people will most likely stay closer to home during these holidays.

Now, Southern Cross Travel Insurance’s (SCTI) list of the most expensive domestic claims has highlighted the importance of taking out insurance whether Australians are travelling domestically or internationally.     

SCTI’s top 10 most expensive domestic travel insurance claims revealed that half came from customers who had not yet packed their bags, while other claims resulted from adventurous holiday activities gone wrong.

At the top of the list is a $6,043 claim paid to a customer who travelled to Surfer’s Paradise with her two children with autism but had to cancel her trip and return home early when one of her children became distressed due to being in unfamiliar settings.

The second most expensive domestic travel insurance claim was paid to the parents of a 15-year-old hospitalised in Mackay for three days due to acute appendicitis and required urgent surgery – with SCTI paying out $4,685 to cover the family’s cancelled accommodation and costs for flight changes.

The other expensive domestic travel insurance claims included on SCTI’s top 10 list are:

• A 47-year-old had to cancel their six-day bike cycling tour in Tasmania after falling off the bike on the first day of the tour and sustaining multiple fractures (claim paid: $4,536).
• A 65-year-old had to cancel her trip after sustaining a bicycle injury in which they suffered a nerve impingement and muscle inflammation (claim paid: $4,021).
• A 59-year-old had to cancel their trip due to being diagnosed with a relapse of cancer (claim paid: $3,339).
• A 24-year-old had to cancel their trip after sustaining a workplace injury (claim paid: $3,318).
• A 75-year-old had to claim after falling off a horse during their alpine horse safari (claim paid: $3,256).
• A 44-year-old had to cancel her trip to Cairns and return to Brisbane following news her six-year-old child has been hospitalised following an accident (claim paid: $2,871).
• A 48-year-old had to claim when a Cassowary bird ran into the road and hit the front of the car during a trip to Cape Tribulation (claim paid: $2,750).
• An 87-year-old had to cancel his trip after his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo surgery (claim paid: $2,400).

Read more: ICA boss: "You shouldn’t leave Australia without travel insurance"

SCTI CEO Jo McCauley said the top 10 claims show that holidays in Australia can be as expensive, if not more, than heading overseas. They also demonstrate why travel insurance is just as important for trips closer to home.

“Following the outbreak of COVID-19, there has been a heightened sense of what could go wrong on holiday, and we’ve seen this reflected in the growing number of people purchasing domestic travel insurance with SCTI,” McCauley said.

“Interestingly, people commonly purchase insurance because they want to be covered while they’re away on holiday, but our biggest number of claims [shows] that the unexpected can happen beforehand, regardless of whether you’re travelling domestically or abroad. Unfortunately, this can have a serious hit to your pocket if you don’t have travel insurance.

Over the past year, customers needing to change or cancel their journey accounted for 39% of the total value of domestic travel insurance claims paid out by SCTI.

“The customers who’ve had to cancel their holiday due to injury or illness have been across all age groups, which goes to show it’s not just older people that need to be purchasing travel insurance. We should all be factoring travel insurance into the holiday planning process to insure against the unexpected,” McCauley said.