Ryanair Travel Insurance for French residents

[val douest]

I'm not sure whether to post this here or under Travel, but here goes...

We now live permanently in France and in October will be spending a

week in the Canary Islands with friends.  Getting there involves a

flight by Ryanair to Stansted and then a flight with another airline to

Tenerife. The airfares, car rental, accommodation etc add up to quite a

bit and it would be reassuring to be covered by cancellation insurance

- we are not so worried about medical insurance once we get there as we

will have European health cards, and emergency treatment in Spain is

free.  Checking prices on the Ryanair website I see they now offer

travel insurance via Elvia to French residents but I couldn't work out

whether it would cover us for everything booked between our outward and

return Ryanair flights even though they are mainly in a country other

than the one Ryanair is taking us to.

Has anyone used Ryanair's travel insurance for French residents, and if

so can you tell me what it covers?  At €14 per person it seems

very reasonable which leads me to suspect it it is somewhat

limited.  Or does anyone have any other suggestions?  In the

UK we had annual travel cover which was relatively inexpensive but I

haven't seen anything like that here and anyway we travel so little

(perfectly happy where we are!) that it wouldn't be worthwhile.

Val

[Val_2]

All I can tell you is that Elvia is probably the largest holiday insurance company in France. Look in any french brochure and they are the insurers. My daughter's class had all their insurance through them for independent travel to Maroc last november and it was very reasonable.

[Quillan]

If you pay by some UK and French Debit/Credit Cards you can get free insurance. I have a Banque Populair gold card which costs me 54€ per year. This offers free travel insurance and will get my car home free if it breaks down so it's actually cheaper that buying the services elsewhere. I believe American Express and Lloydes Bank (sorry can't spell) both offer free travel insurance. With all these cards you must use them to make the booking.

Why not make it a slightly longer holiday and drive down the south of France (its very nice down here) and then on to Girona from where you can fly direct to Canary Islands. We live 3hrs drive from that airport and we have  about 11 couples stay with us last year from Grand Canarie and thats how they get back and forth.

[Teamedup]

I am not sure whether one is covered by a UK gold card if a french resident. And usually one is covered solely from a UK destination. I think that the small print would need very careful reading before going down that road. There was something about this on You and Yours a few years back.

 

I agree though that a french gold card for french residents is a good idea and we always take one for the year we are planning a big voyage.

[val douest]

Many thanks for all the suggestions.  I shall certainly look into

upgrading our French card before we do any more travelling but it won't

help this time as most of the tickets etc have already been

bought.  However, I checked back through some earlier postings and

contacted gayegalliver@aol.com who came highly recommended and she has

fixed us up with an all-singing-and-dancing policy.  Probably more

than we need in fact but worth it for peace of mind.

Sadly, we're only able to take the shortest possible travelling time

this year as we are tied in to house sitters - but another time the

Girona option sounds very attractive!

Val

[Cat]

[quote user="Teamedup"]

I am not sure whether one is covered by a UK gold card if a french resident. And usually one is covered solely from a UK destination. I think that the small print would need very careful reading before going down that road. There was something about this on You and Yours a few years back.

 

I agree though that a french gold card for french residents is a good idea and we always take one for the year we are planning a big voyage.

[/quote]

I can second TU on this one. I have a Lloyds TSB gold card, it used to allow free travel insurance, but under the new terms and conditions this is only for UK residents.