So what prompted All Planet to specialise in Travel Insurance?

• Dropped sunglasses at Chichen Itza - Cancun Mexico.
• Slipped and dropped a $500 Nintendo into the River Somme, Northern France.
• Pushed and dropped a camera at Disneyland in California.
• Left a $6000 laptop on top of a taxi in New York, as the taxi sped off and laptop smashed.
• Laptop left inside a taxi in Japan (same client as above).
• Laptop damaged whilst going through scanning machine in Denpasar, Bali.
• Palm pilot stolen in Hong Kong.
• Extra flight coupon, incorrectly pulled out at Sydney airport and made to pay for a new flight from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong.
• Missed last connection out from Los Angeles to Miami.
• Robbed in a hotel room in Cambodia.
• Asthma attack on the plane at Sydney Airport ready for take off to Paris.
• Fallen off a cliff in Nepal and had to be emergency evacuated on day two of holiday.
• Broken foot whilst surfing in Fiji.
• Father passes away suddenly and Mexico business trip cancelled.
• Been jilted and had to call off a wedding and cancel the honeymoon to Fiji.
• Severely broken leg whilst playing soccer in London England.
• Camera broken inside a tour bus in Europe.
• Pearl necklace stolen at day spa in Paris.
• ...the list goes on and on and on! 

"It's not the big major disastrous things that prompt us to offer travel insurance - it's the little things...  Like knowing that our client's belongings are covered and that if something does go wrong it's not going to totally spoil their trip."

Getting back to our young Indian man and the first person we emotionally connected with who declined travel insurance. Here's what happened:

The Young Indian Man
"A young, charismatic Indian/English man purchased a lengthy itinerary of tickets, He was set to travel for the next three months around Australia and then onto New Zealand before heading back to London (England). He laughed when we asked if he would like travel insurance. Two weeks later he visited our office selling dried flowers. We asked him why he was selling dried flowers when he was meant to be on a tour around Ayers Rock?  He said that his backpack, clothes, money belt with credit cards, travellers cheques, airline ticket, passport and three thousand dollars cash had been stolen from the youth hostel he was staying at in Alice Springs. (Please Note: Travel Insurance does not cover stolen cash, insurance companies do issue emergency cash for clothing).

He spent the next three months selling dried flowers door-to-door instead of having a fantastic sun blessed time in Australia.

Further still, his gorgeous, slightly disabled and disfigured sister was to join him in Cairns and they were to spend a month together with a portion of her trip being supported financially by her brother. It broke our hearts when she too was selling flowers a fortnight later...  

Up until that moment our office was not at all serious about selling travel insurance - well it was also 1997 and the world seemed just a little safer back then. We wished we had made a video of how stressed this young man was. If he had taken out Travel Insurance, he would have had most of his luggage, clothes, personal effects, reissue and cancellation fees recovered very quickly! He saved the initial expense on the special INBOUND POLICY we offered him, but he lost an estimated $10,000.00 or 25 times more in personal effects, time, accommodation, cash and fees.

He went back home with irreplaceable memories of his time in Australia, but not the ideal ones of giving his sister her dream holiday and spending leisure time with her.

Sure, he still would have lost his cash, however he would have been back on his feet and able to salvage a good portion of his holiday a lot quicker.

Thankfully this story is not a tragedy but a good reminder to take precautions, get covered and of course don't carry large bundles of cash!"