Planning a trip to a foreign destination is an exciting and fun process. Of course, it can’t all be fun and games. There are many important legal aspects that also need to be taken care of before you set out. Driving in a foreign country involves a valid driver’s license and insurance. There are many things that may be required of you and those things can change depending which country you are going to. Be sure to find out what you need to take care of in advance so that there are no nasty last minute surprises.

In many foreign countries your own home country driver’s license will not be good enough. You will be required to show an international driver’s permit to prove that you are legally allowed to drive there. This involves an application process, so give yourself enough time to get all of this in to place. In fact, it may be better to book the rest of the trip after taking care of these issues.

Go to a reputable travel agent that you trust for assistance. By having help on your end it can do plenty to eliminate language barrier delays. A travel agent may also be able to give you some tips on saving money in a foreign country and alert you to legal issues that you need to be aware of.

Make sure that any car rental you get involved in has some kind of insurance in place. Most well known companies like Budget or Enterprise have this stuff taken care of. But you need to know it is there so ask for paperwork that states as much. Go over the insurance coverage as well to make sure there are no loopholes that will leave you stuck in the event of an accident.

Take out your own travel insurance that can also be applied to automobiles. This may be preferable to you if it is added security that you seek. Speak to travel insurance representatives to see what they can offer you in terms of cost and protection. An insurance company should always be working with you, not against you.

The statistics regarding accidents and fatalities abroad are substantial. An estimated two hundred Americans die each year from accidents that occur while they are visiting in a foreign country. This can be a result of everything from car jacking to traffic accidents. Do what you can to protect yourself at all times. This is a statistics list that nobody wants to end up on.

If you end up bringing your own car to a foreign country, make sure that it meets all legal requirements for that place. From insurance to registration and licensing, all legal aspects need to be up to date and legit. Make sure that any insurance coverage you receive matches what you have back home. Anything less may leave you unprotected. The first step to getting foreign car insurance is being aware of what is expected of you. Equip yourself with knowledge so there are no ugly surprises.

By: Levi Quinn

‘Wider implications’ is a technical term used by the Financial Ombudsman Service [FOS]. Wider implications issues include cases where the underlying issue is one that affects a large number of consumers or firms and in September of 2008 the Ombudsman raised PPI as a wider implications issue with the Financial Services Authority [FSA] to decide whether a regulatory solution imposed on the industry might be more fitting than decisions being made on individual cases by the Ombudsman. Just as there was a great brouhaha over the penalty charges that banks made to customers and deemed as unreasonable – making profit from penalties, PPIs might suffer the same fate if the industry doesn’t self-regulate and behave in a more reasonable manner to those claimants who believe they have been mis-sold a product.

It’s great having all this information after the fact but too often the public trusts salesmen and women to do their job honestly and be fair in their conduct and pieces of paper that might be essential to making a claim against a firm could have been consigned to the bin years ago. Merely the policy document remains in your file or drawer or wherever you keep it. Red tape, bureaucracy and providing evidence can make many claims against firms nearly impossible when you are no longer in possession of records that might be useful. Who would have foreseen that PPIs might become an issue of wider implications or that paperwork has to be kept in archive for several years? There simply isn’t the space for all the bits of paper an average household would need if they have house insurance, buildings and contents insurance, car insurance, P60s, bank statements, credit card statements, benefits information and invoices or receipts for purchases made on their credit cards. Many companies want the original paperwork and most people don’t have it. We’re told not to store information about personal finances on our computers for fear of identity theft and even if you did, retrieving it does not provide the ‘original’ paperwork that companies ask for to back up a claim. Even though they may have a record of the transaction so often we are told ‘it’s company policy’ that original documentation is provided to support any claim and that they have to, “adhere to policy, I’m afraid. Sorry!”

Unless individuals have lost huge sums of money or are of a Victor Meldrew mindset, they will probably give up pursuing their claim as it involves too much administration, annoying phone calls [that often can only be made during business hours - hard to do if you're at work too] that keep you on hold listening to muzaak or automated services that do not have an option to suit your query and no live operator to speak to. It’s easier to drop the case than to be continuously frustrated in your efforts to solve the problem and it makes more sense to ‘get a life’ and forget about being screwed over. The FSA and the FOS are trying to lessen those frustrations and are worthwhile places to start if you do wish to make a claim against a mis-sold PPI.

By: Steven Mcdouglass