Megan Singleton: BloggerAtLarge.com writer on the importance of travel insurance

A recent incident that impacted some unlucky Kiwi travellers in Bali serves as a reminder about the significance of travel insurance.

A Christchurch real estate agent Amanda Blair had emergency surgery at Siloam Hospital in Mataram after a harmful scooter crash - setting her and her family back thousands of dollars.

BloggerAtLarge.com writer Megan Singleton says checking the fine print is essential for travel - before you get caught out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Megan Singleton is with us.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Now, Good morning, Good morning Francesca.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey, my heart goes out to the woman and her
family who was injured after a scooter accident recently while
on holiday. A really traumatic event for them to have
to deal with, but actually just a gentle reminder to
us all about, you know, checking the fine print and
our insurance policies.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yeah. Now, it was a horrible story this week that
I saw in the paper, a Kiwi woman from christ Church.
She came off her scooter in Bali and unless you
are a licensed motorcycle rider, you should not ride a
motorcycle over fifty ccs and your insurance won't cover you
for riding a bike over fifty ccs. Unfortunately, that bike

(00:59):
was one hundred and twenty five CC's. She's got a
collapsed lung, she's had surgery, she's got more to come.
They've got to figure out how to get to her home.
So I actually went online and looking at all of
the quick quotes that you can get from their insurance companies,
and it's really hard to find to be honest how
to add these extras. So Leah, just a little reminder

(01:21):
and if you're relying on your bank credit card to
cover you for your travel insurance, triple check that you've
got these little extras covered. Even a cruise needs to
be covered separately, certainly motor scooters and any extreme activities.
So they've set up and give a little page. It's
called help Amanda Recover from a tragic scooter accident. I'm

(01:43):
sure you could just do help Amanda and you'd find it. Yeah,
they just need some cash, and I just thought, well,
let's try and make this little segment work if your
listeners can spare a dollar and help this poor woman
who just had no idea that writing that scooter and
bali would lead to such disaster for her.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Feel it's so easy these days to go online and
get insurance for anything, right, Yeah. I think if you
know where you're going, you know the kind of travel
you're going to be doing, and the possible you know,
like if you are in Indonesia, you're probably thinking, yeah, no,
we probably will get on a scooter at some point.
We do this. Yeah, you want to be able to
call a person and say this is my holiday. These
are the things I'm going to do. All good yes,

(02:22):
and actually you know and have a conversation and say, oh,
actually I'm going off here to sale, or I'm going
off here to climb this, or I'm going off here
to ride my bike, you know, do a cycle. It's
like you want to be able to it's worthwhile finding
someone to talk to and I'm going.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
To do well, that's where yeah, and that's where your
travel agent yeah yeah, use you ask your travel agent
all of that when they're booking your flights. But if
you're doing it yourself, you've got to, as you say,
be really diligent and ask those questions and try and
find them. It is really hard. I even went into
the exclusions just before and I couldn't find anything that

(02:56):
said motorbikes over fifty ccs. Not at a quick glance. Anyway.
You have to really delve science.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Oh no, really nice reminder and thank you for sharing that, Megan.
You can find me an at blogger at large dot com.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio