Insurances

Health insurance

The probably most important insurance for Australia travellers is the special health insurance for foreign countries since legal insurances from many countries do not pay in the case of illness. For short trips there are favourable insurance packages which you can book e.g. in a travel agency together with the flight.

For longer trips these insurances are expensive and so it is better to compare the different insurance providers. Of course you should not only look for the price. It is important too to read the fine print in the details. Services and insurance sum are often quite different.

We for example have choosen the wrong insurance company. At Elvia (one of the leading European travel insurances) we took the "All inclusive travel insurance". But everytime when we had needed this insurance we mostly even did not get any reply and we tried several times!! (although their ad tells: "Wherever you are: we are also there. Security worldwide, 365 days a year.") They promise to help you 24 hours a day, but then after month when we finally received an answer (not in all cases), it was a negetive one. Our big luck was that we never became seriously sick. Our "insured" events applied only to damaged flight baggage and to repair costs and help after an accident. Conclusion: We CAN NOT RECOMMEND this insurance anyway!!!

You should still consider following: if you make a longer journey and thus quit your job, you do not have a social insurance in Austria anymore. If you had an accident, and your insurance company would transfer you home, you would not have any insurance cover in Austria. That means that you would have to bear the medical costs in Austria yourself. Even in Australia you would have to pay a participation of 20 % usually to the special health insurance. Hence we concluded a self-insurance at our local health insurance company.

Other insurances

For a journey like ours I recommend an insurance for the costs of search and recovery in e.g. remote areas and a back haul service for sick persons, which is included in most travel insurance packages (pay attention to the insurance sum).

For our purpose a burglary insurance was not necessary, because according to our knowledge no insurance would pay for the theft of unbarred baggage or from the tent. Within flight baggage insurances bikes are mostly not included.