Car Insurance:
We’ve found it impossible to find anyone who would insure the car for Africa at any sort of reasonable fee (particularly since our Land Rover 110 Tdi is so heavily modified). The best price we found was $3,000 and identified so many exclusions that it made us laugh out loud.
It’s difficult enough to get medium / long-term insurance cover for Europe.
The only real option is to buy 3rd -Party cover locally in each African country we visit.
It’s relatively cheap (typically $15-$40 per country) and as good as worthless. Supposedly it provides cover for anyone / anything you may hit, but I wouldn’t want to test that theory. It certainly doesn’t provide any cover for your own vehicle. However, we don’t fancy explaining to the police at the regular roadblocks why we haven’t got it, and certainly wouldn’t want to explain why we don’t have it if we should be unfortunate enough to hit something!
For most southern & eastern African countries, a COMESA insurance policy can be bought. This provides blanket 3rd-Party cover across many countries and saves the money and hassle of buying it at each border.
The first policy we bought (at the Tanzanian border) cost us $80 for 12 months cover. That almost seemed too cheap at the time – and in fact it did actually prove to be too cheap! When we subsequently took out another policy in Uganda for our second year of travelling, the insurance company in Kampala explained that we had bought a fake policy, printed on old-stock, stolen insurance certificates.
The correct certificates should have a silver embossed hologram in one corner and the flag emblem should show a ‘rippled’ flag (like it’s flying in the breeze) rather than a static, rectangular graphic. Oh well, I guess you live and learn.
Our Ugandan-bought, legitimate COMESA policy still worked out to be good value at $150 for 12 months cover for all countries in the COMESA region.
Medical Insurance:
Being in our early 50’s travel insurance for more than 45-60 days is pretty hard to come by.
Our priority is emergency medical treatment / evacuation / repatriation (rather than baggage loss & delay etc).
It’s important that we have 365 day cover, can renew on the road, are covered for ‘overlanding’ activities etc.
The best policy we found was through World Nomads. It covers little in the way of expensive equipment, cash, etc (unless additional premiums are paid) but will cover overlanding, safaris, white water rafting, etc.
The policy can be bought for any period from 1 week to 18 months and can subsequently be renewed (online) whilst still travelling. We paid about $1,000 for 12 months cover for 2 people, but check online as there are often discount codes available.
First Aid:
All we have had previously is basic workplace H&S / first aid training (many years ago).
Since we will be travelling alone (and often in remote areas) we felt we needed more information & confidence to deal with emergencies without panicking – from minor issues (stomach upsets, cuts, etc) to the more serious (burns, breaks, etc).
We booked a ‘Far From Help‘ course run by Wilderness Medical Training. No previous medical or First Aid experience is needed to enrol.
Thoroughly recommended to anyone who spends any time outdoors.
Really excellent (see the links page, or click …here…).