If your policy does not do what you need at the time, it may not be possible to change right away because you cannot cancel an insurance policy in Portugal except at the renewal date or if the item insured (house, car etc) has been disposed of.

However, we will happily quote alternatives for you and make a diary note to contact you again a few weeks before your renewal date to update and verify our quote.

Home insurance may be for a main home, holiday home or main home plus holiday letting and for the latter, you are also required to obtain a letting licence from the local câmara (council) and obtain a specific type of liability insurance - Ibex can advise on all aspects of home insurance, including letting and cover for valuables when you insure your main home.

Motor Insurance is available through Ibex for comprehensive up to 15 years old at inception, Third Party Only for older cars or for some types of vehicle up to €7,500 in value, Third Party, Fire & Theft. Ibex has certain age restrictions but if young drivers need to be covered, we can arrange cover with one of our Portuguese insurers.

Travel Insurance is one of the cheapest forms of insurance, but one that can save you the most. It is essential to ensure that you have the cover you need. One poor girl on holiday in Turkey had travel insurance and assumed that it would include water sports. She fell off the back of a jet ski and was hit by the full force of the jet propulsion and rushed to hospital. It was only when she tried to claim that she found that water sports were not included and she had a bill for over £25,000 (sterling)

Pet Insurance is sometimes seen as expensive, so a cheaper local alternative is arranged, only to find that the veterinary fees cover is restricted to €400 or even lower! If you have 2 or more pets, the premiums for the second and subsequent policies have big discounts but the same cover.

Private Medical Insurance is a minefield - there are so many providers with so many different levels of cover that trying to do it yourself will be very time consuming and you may get what you think you want but not what you actually need.

Funeral Planning is apparently morbid as far as some clients are concerned but arranging your own funeral doesn't mean you are about to die, just that you are showing care and compassion for those left behind.

Rules of the Road whilst not directly insurance related in some aspects, certainly affects your policy and premiums in others. Many claims are as a result of not knowing that someone else has the right of way, and it will cost you in increased premiums in subsequent years.

Insuring for the correct value may seem basic, but if you under-insure you run the risk of having a claim reduced by the same proportion as the under-insured value. Conversely, over-insuring is wasteful because in the event of a claim, any settlement will be based on the market value of the house/contents at the time of the incident as assessed by a loss adjustor so not necessarily as much as you have covered. The same applies to motor insurance and if your car is worth €15,000 but you insure for €20,000, your premium will be higher but for a total loss the settlement will based on a maximum of €15,000

Travel Insurance Roulette may seem to be an overstatement but if you don't take a policy or wait until the day that you travel, you have no cancellation cover, and in the best of worlds, accident happen causing travel to be impossible. If you don't have any travel insurance in place at the time of an incident, you can't arrange it later and claim!

The adages "You only get what you pay for" and "If something looks too good to be true, it probably is" both hold true in many walks of life and apply equally to many insurance policies - cheap does not necessarily mean inexpensive. More often than not, cheap means reduced or even no cover!

If you have any queries, please don't hesitate to call into one of our offices in Almancil or Tavira to get the most suitable policy to meet your needs or call us on 800 860 708 / 289 399 774 for Almancil or 281 325 842 for Tavira. Or if you prefer, send an e-mail to ptnews@ibexinsure.com