Long-term travel insurance - hints and tips

If you have been following my story, you know we applied for the Barbados Welcome Stamp nearly a year ago, and have been trying to get everything sorted since then. We now have a flight booked, so we have other things that need to be put in place. One of the requirements for the Barbados welcome stamp visa is that you have your own medical insurance. We have been looking at discussion groups made by others who have already made the move for advice and I have also looked on some digital nomad sites for their advice. I will be honest though and say I wasn't looking forward to booking this part. Making sure you get the right policy can be complex, so there was much to read.

Since I will have a lot of tech, things for teaching online, cameras for making videos etc I wanted to make sure I would be safe, as well as all of my equipment. The nomad cover seems to be a good option, but this was very expensive. SafetyWing was a company that a lot of people said they used for medical insurance, and it had good reviews, but it was approximately £60 a month (£720 a year) and I would need additional travel insurance for the flights and apartments we have booked and gadget cover. Which all adds up.

I had been trying to search for something all-inclusive, the same way I would if I was going on a week-long holiday. It was a bit of a struggle though as many companies don't cover the length of time I needed, and the other companies weren't being filtered out. I then saw someone post that you should search for 'long stay travel insurance,' as this would remove the multi-trip results and other short-trip policies.

I found a company that looked promising. It had the medical cover I needed, and would also cover any problems with flights etc. I read through all the terms and conditions and could see that mobile phones and other electronics needed to have the additional 'gadget cover' selected. Okay, I thought this sounds easy. Back on the website I searched everywhere but there was no gadget cover to be seen. They had a phone number, so I phoned them to speak to a real person. After answering all the questions again and double checking what I had selected would be enough cover we came to the gadget cover but her system didn't allow it either. After speaking to her manager it turned out they could only cover gadgets for a maximum of 90 days. So after being on the phone for nearly an hour and looking to see if they could cover the electronics a different way this was a total bust. A word to the wise - check the wording on everything before you travel.

I then tried using a comparison site to see if they could find a company that would cover everything I needed, and Tesco Bank came out as the best for me. I was able to add the gadget insurance, it covers me worldwide so if we go on a break to another island I am still covered, and I have the medical and travel coverage I wanted. It really is worth shopping around.

I feel this is a big hurdle that has now been jumped. There are still other things to do before we fly, but this one is a real weight off my mind. We have some nice things planned for the next few weeks, then the end will really be in sight.