UAE residents have their minds set on travelling safely this summer, with compareit4me.com, the Middle East’s leading comparison site, having recorded a 62 per cent increase in the number of visits to its travel insurance comparison portal.

The increase was seen between the months of May and June this year, and is explained by the fact that a large number of UAE residents have taken the recently passed Eid Al Fitr as the beginning of their summer holidays.

Sales of travel insurance policies naturally increased along with the number of visits to compareit4me’s travel insurance portal, with over 200 per cent more travel insurance policies being sold in June 2017 than in May 2017.

“We’d naturally expect an uptick in travel insurance policy sales ahead of the summer holidays, but what has really caught our eye is that there seems to be a better understanding among UAE residents that taking out travel insurance is an important part of travelling,” said Jonathan Rawling, CFO of compareit4me.com.

“Our evidence for this is that travel insurance policy sales for June are actually up 550 per cent year-on-year. This means that many more people are taking out travel insurance ahead of their summer holidays than they were last year.”

Compareit4me also revealed that English speakers make up the vast majority of users purchasing travel insurance online. Only a small fraction of visitors to compareit4me’s travel insurance comparison platform opted to view the portal’s Arabic-language pages. This could be down to one of two factors. It may be that those who speak Arabic as a first language are culturally less inclined to see value in travel insurance, or it could be that Arabic speakers simply prefer to make online purchases in English, due to the prevalence of English across online and banking systems worldwide.  

“It’s certainly true that, in general, Western and Asian expats tend to be more considerate of the fact that travel insurance is a worthy purchase, so that might play into these numbers. And with Eid Al Fitr and the summer months being a popular holiday window for GCC nationals, we would argue that perhaps more education on why travel insurance is important is needed for this group,” said Rawling.

The importance of travel insurance has been well documented by compareit4me. One in six customers make a claim on their travel insurance policies, and compareit4me research has found that 80 per cent of UAE travellers have experienced some sort of travel-related incident. Travel insurance claims can be for anything from stolen cash on holiday, through lost luggage on a flight, to cancellations on the part of tour operators. By taking out travel insurance for a relatively small outlay, compared to the overall cost of a trip abroad, travellers can ensure they’re protected financially in the event of an incident.

Compareit4me’s travel insurance platform allows users to compare quotes for insurance that offers everything from full coverage for the European Schengen zone to policies that cover travellers for an entire year. - TradeArabia News Service