University insurance cover for your year abroad: the ins and outs

Claims

If you’re getting university cover, it means that you are covered under your university’s student insurance policy, so if you have a claim, the university may have to deal with the claim on your behalf. The university may therefore be the ‘middle man’ for the whole process and then if all goes to plan you will receive your claim.

Extent of Cover

You also need to ensure that the university cover is appropriate to your personal situation because you will want to work, study, go on mini-breaks and holidays, return home whenever you want and be covered outside the four walls of your study/workplace. A few universities give students an ‘out of the box’ business trip travel policy – they feel happy that all of their students are ‘covered’, but you may lose out big time if you step outside the confines of the policy and realise that you’re not covered outside the university or on your weekend trip or when you knock into an old lady on a bicycle. If you are not clearly defined as an insured person do not just assume that you are covered. Students have been caught out before: Make sure you read the small print!

Extra Cover

Many universities ask students to take out their university insurance and then recommend that they get extra travel and emergency medical insurance to effectively fill in the gaps. We think you they could never recommend this strongly enough! This is really important.