A Time of Magic

Although we often think of America as a close cousin in every way, there’s lots of little differences that you just don’t expect.

Take bank transfers for instance. In the UK it’s a simple matter to transfer money from A to B but it’s only simple because the UK banking scene consists largely of a handful of big banks which operate pretty much right across the country. That being the case, they’ve had the opportunity to make standards stick and to implement a modern banking system.

In America it’s quite different. There you’ll find thousands of banks often dealing only with a local community. Instead of having a handful of banks with hundreds of branches as in the UK, there you’ll find hundreds of banks with only a handful of branches.

This difference has led to a much more community based approach in some cases. Thus the check by phone facility that exists in America has absolutely no counterpart in the UK for the simple reason that community banking just doesn’t exist in the UK: nobody would trust a system quite like the check by phone mechanism!

Although you might think that gift cards have been around forever in fact in their current form they’ve quite a recent innovation.

These days you can find a gift card just about everywhere from all the major retailers through to some quite small shops and that’s before you even consider the likes of phone cards. So many that I’m sure that just about everyone has received one at some time in their lives and, in case you’re wondering, there are collectors of the things too.

One big downside is that you can usually only use the card in the outlet that issues them which is more than a notional problem as people are finding out at the moment since the cards issued by retailers that have gone bankrupt can’t generally be used.

In most cases a general purpose travel insurance policy isn’t worth paying for simply because many of us these days have valuable items specifically insured under our home insurance and often you can find that all your possessions are covered when outside your home. Do check though as it ain’t always the case!

However, what can be worthwhile is a specific travel medical insurance policy. Depending on where you live, you might think that your normal medical insurance will cover you and that’s true but only up to a point. That particular point is usually repatriation which is a major league expense in some cases. Even on fairly short-haul flights within Europe you can be looking at thousands by the time you add in things like medical care during the flight, specialised equipment to be taken with you and, of course, you’re not going to be able to use a discount airline, are you?

Those not living in America also have to consider the potential expense of American medical care which tends to be a special extension to most medical insurance policies and is unlikely to be an option for most normal domestic policies. Even where it is an option you can find that the cover on offer is pitifully small in comparison to the bills that you could find yourself getting.

So, no for a general travel insurance policy, definitely yes for a travel medical insurance one.