Yes, the cover is reasonably priced, but when we needed to use the emergency assistance line after my partner contracted pneumonia, the service we received was deplorable. Once I had made the initial call to them, I expected a little more proactive help then I received - I was trying to arrange for care for my 5 year old and 3 year old, while dealing with all the distress that comes with having your partner seriously ill in a foreign hospital. Instead of being offered some real help, I felt I was having to make decisions on my own and that I was the one making the calls. Don't expect your phonecalls to the emergency assistance line to be covered under the terms of the policy either - they aren't, even when you are calling to seek help or simply to get them to authorise you to incur expenditure or even to try and get home. Tesco Insurance has refused to repay the cost of flying my father out to collect my children and take them home so that I could remain behind and care for my children on the grounds that they did not authorise these costs, even though I told them that I would be doing this prior to my father flying out. Nor did they offer any other alternatives, though they have since told me that they would have covered the additional expenditure of taking the children home with me once my partner had recovered (even though that would have cost more). So much for Every Little Helps. Further, they did nothing to try and facilitate our return to the UK - I had to organise all of that myself. The only time they were proactive was to tell us not to board a flight when we were looking into flights to return home. I had been a pretty loyal Tesco customer, but for a company that prides itself on customer service and being a family friendly company, I have been hugely disappointed. To suggest that I should have kept my children with me in a foreign country while I had to visit my partner in the respiratory ward of a hospital where people were dying is disgusting. I will never use this insurance company again.

Posted by Deborah Siddoway on the 18th June 2009

As you would expect from Tesco, their travel insurance is cheap, fairly comprehensive and straightforward. You can buy online or in any Tesco store, so it is widely available.

I chose to buy online for a trip to Canada and found the website to be well laid out and very simple to use. They offer annual cover or single trip cover for a range of time periods, which means if you're just off to Paris for a romantic weekend, you can save money by purchasing Tesco’s 3 day travel insurance but they also cover periods of 8 and 15 days, which is perfect for a one or two week holiday but any longer and it is worth looking at annual insurance or giving them a call for a more personalised plan. There are policies for any number of people and it is really easy to select group cover as you just enter the number of adults and children that are travelling. Tesco also offer reduced price policies for single parent families and children go free on all family policies.

Quotes are available at the touch of a button and you can also compare the price of single trip cover to that the price of an annual policy. The quote also includes a quick checklist of exactly what the policy covers as well as the countries that are covered.

Tesco travel insurance does not have as many options as some policies from other insurance providers but if you need quick and easy travel insurance from a well-known company at a low price, Tesco is company to choose.

Posted by Alexa Malcom on the 19th August 2008