The travel chaos caused by the ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano and the resulting shutdown of airspace throughout Europe has highlighted the limitations of travel insurance for many people. Many people are finding they are not covered or that they are covered for a lot less than they had expected.

We may think the cheapest travel insurance will cover us for every eventuality but the reality is that all those hundreds of different policies are different and they have different requirements of what merits a payout and how much they will pay in compensation. When you take out a policy at half the price it is more than possible that you will get around half the cover, though not always.

Free bonuses of travel insurance with some bank accounts sound attractive but if you look into the detail it is likely you will get a basic policy with limitations on cover for valuable items you take with you on your trip. This could include mobile phones, computers and cameras as well as jewelry and even expensive designer handbags.

Deciding what might be an act of god and whether you would or would not be covered is another area of confusion but most of us would expect to be covered whatever happens and that is why we take out travel insurance.

Many of us view the prospect of studying the small print in any contract with horror but the events following the disruption caused by the ash cloud have shown that we all need to be more careful to check that a contract does match our needs.

Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)

Call me old fashioned but it bothers me when they talk about the cashless society where all financial transactions will be made electronically and they are talking about this happening sooner rather than later. Cheques are due to disappear by 2018 and cash is likely to fade away in the decade or so after that.

If we hadn’t just had the biggest warning of the potential for disaster that letting the banks have control of anything risks, I might be able to understand the enthusiasm some people have for this. Yes, it will be great not to have to carry cash with you when you go anywhere but how good will it feel when your cashless society decides to reject your credit card, debit card, automatic micro payment phone or whatever other system becomes the norm in years to come.

What happens when the banks go through another crisis and the system goes belly up for good? What do you do with a nation full of people who are unable to buy food or pay for services because the system has gone down? How would the country cope if, perish the thought, we were involved in a war that damaged our infrastructure so instant transactions could not occur for hours and maybe days?

Governments have a duty to keep the country prepared for things that might happen. It is the reason we keep an army available even if we are not fighting a war. It’s the reason we have emergency services who can respond when something does go wrong.

The idea that we might be dependent on a financial system that depends on greedy bankers and one that profits them every single time any transaction is made makes me feel very uncomfortable. The banks tried controlling the world recently and everything went pear-shaped. If we hand over control of all money and transactions to them it is hard to see what might stop them in the future.

I can see how appealing it would be to any government to avoid the significant cost of printing and minting currency as well as the appeal of having all transactions monitored in some way for taxation purposes but this seems like a very dangerous step for any nation to take and could even threaten democracy when banks have total control of money.

How would any government stand up to the banks when they can simply say they will stop the whole country from making any transactions at all if the government doesn’t do what the banks want. You cannot simply send the army in to run a financial system. We would be totally dependent on the good will and accuracy of the banking system and frankly, I don’t trust them.

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Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)

There is a classic piece of dubious language on the Ryanair site today. In an effort to ‘incentivise’ customers to travel light they are increasing baggage charges through the summer months.

Now I may be old fashioned but what they are actually doing is to penalise customers who want to take hold baggage? If they were incentivising they would be reducing the cost for those who travel light, wouldn’t they?

It should come as no surprise. Ryanair seems to care only about making money and if they could ship people in cattle trucks I expect they would be glad to reduce the price. There are, apparently, serious plans to charge customers to use toilets on short haul flights. I suspect that will be a financial mistake because who in their right mind will be paying rather steep prices for a cup of coffee or tea on the flight when it costs you a pound to get rid of it?

Apparently they plan to reduce the number of toilets and add a few more seats in their place. This may be the real reason for the proposed change but it makes traveling even more unpleasant if you need to worry about frequent use of the loo. Some people might find they end up spending more money on the loo than the flight cost them, if we ignore booking fees, baggage fees, checkin fees and a million other additional charges.

Time may prove me wrong but I suspect we have seen the peak of air travel as a pleasureable experience. I also suspect that we may see passenger numbers continue to decline even after the recession thanks to the feelings of disrespect air travelers now experience from airlines who are only interested in the bottom line on their accounts.

This is probably the most obvious example of a trend in recent years where companies are so concerned about reducing costs and making efficiencies and profits that they seem to have lost something from the customer experience. Yes, you can travel cheaper now than 20 years ago but is it a price worth paying? So many companies now seem to treat their customers as gold to be mined in the most efficient way possible with little thought apparently given to whether customers truly enjoy dealing with the company.

Companies like Ryanair will no doubt argue that customers continue to use their services because they are so cheap but is this really progress? Surely there is a middle ground where costs are managed but customers can still have a stress free experience, and are not left with the feeling they are being fleeced at every opportunity.

If the journey becomes a battle of wits between the company trying to find additional ways to charge you money and the customer trying to avoid the feeling of having been ripped off who really wins in the end? Probably nobody.

Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)