Travel insurance

OK, having slacked off a little at work I managed to find a sane (well, apparently) travel insurance policy with MoreThan or however you spell it. Multi trip for up to 90 days at a time, maximum 180-ish a year which while not as generous as some others (which are unlimited) is still ample and will give me maybe a month of cover to use for any short holidays later in 2014 as a bonus.

As a further bonus they actually let me pay a supplement up front and paragliding (among various other 'risky' sports) is covered (not personal accident or liability, but if I break a limb that's covered). That was something like £35 extra but the total policy worked out at £170ish, which was still cheaper than I could get from Trailfinders.

Normally I would go with Trailfinders even if they were a bit expensive since they were pretty good when I broke my arm in 2010 but the best price would have been £129 for annual multi trip with a 70 day trip limit and then £193 for an additional 3 month single trip for the post-Christmas bit, plus an extra £25 a pop and having to phone them if I do any paragliding. Had there not been the Christmas break preventing me taking out a 5-6 month single trip policy I'd probably have paid the £255 they wanted for that (for 5 months, 6 would be £289) - of course I'd also have had no choice since multi trip wouldn't have been an option then anyway.

The paragliding thing was not a deciding factor, just a bonus - I figured it was worth paying the £35 to avoid any problems, also quite possibly on that policy I wouldn't have the option to add the cover even for a single day while abroad. (It's just luck/the way they work that Trailfinders offered that the first time I tried it.) What was a consideration was that any policy I took had to at least allow for paragliding cover even if it had to involve some extra fee and/or phone call.

90 days is slightly tight post Christmas but in a way I do need something to ensure I come back and start looking for work by the start of April (when it's apparently a good time to do so) instead of dragging the trip out, so that works out OK really.