Tips for Picking and Buying Travel Insurance
Buying travel insurance can be a confusing process but its coverage you and your family absolutely require. Why? Travel insurance provides you and your family with protection for any unexpected travel expenses, losses or medical costs while travelling away from home.
Before purchasing travel insurance plans, you should consider exploring your travel insurance options. Here we’ve created a comprehensive guide to what the different types of travel insurance are why you need one.
What Does Travel Insurance Cover?
Typically, travel insurance plans cover trip cancellations, medical evacuations, medical emergencies, lost luggage, trip interruptions, damaged luggage, and even stolen luggage.
The coverage level you receive on your travel insurance may vary depending on when you buy it and what you buy. In fact, if you purchase higher coverage level plans, you can even cover pre-existing medical conditions, rental car damage, and cancellation coverage.
Let’s discuss how travel insurance covers the major three factors when traveling; yourself, your experience, and your items:
Protection for You
It means you get coverage for:
- Emergency medical insurance
- Accidental death
- Emergency medical evacuation
- Dismemberment
Protection for Your Stuff
Including (but limited to):
- Rental car coverage
- Lost luggage
- Stolen luggage
- Hotel and cruise ship protection
Protection for Your Experience
It consists of the following;
- Flight cancellation
- Travel delay
- Trip cancellation
- Supplier bankruptcy
What are the Different Types of Travel Insurance?
Depending on what benefits they provide, travel protection plans may vary. Let’s discuss the types of coverage’s you can purchase:
Medical/Health Insurance
Health insurance, otherwise known as medical insurance, provides you with coverage for various medical expenses, including costs of injuries, accidents, and various hospital visits while you’re far away from your hometown.
On top of that, most travel health care plans now offer medical expense coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. However, travel medical care for people with pre-existing conditions requires you to purchase the policy when you book or instantly after booking your trip.
Medical Evacuation Coverage
In this, your travel insurance provider covers the cost of helping you reach a place where you can receive proper medical treatment if you need instant medical attention.
Generally, typical medical insurance plans do not offer evacuation coverage. Before you purchase medical evacuation insurance, ask your insurance provider what’s covered before, during, and after you get to the hospital.
Loss of Baggage or Personal Items
This type of travel insurance coverage offers reimbursement for lost, damaged, as well as stolen baggage. This type of coverage is provided for your overall trip, including flight-related activities and when you reach your travel destination.
If you’re carrying expensive items with more than $1,000 value like your camera or laptop, consider crafting a list of trip details for your homeowners, renters, or business policy.
Trip Cancellation Reimbursement
Trip cancellation insurance is also referred to as trip interruption insurance and trip delay insurance. A trip cancellation insurance offers security for non-refundable and pre-paid travel expenses.
Depending on the travel insurance policies you purchase, the causes of acceptable cancellation and interruption. The amount of reimbursement in your trip cancellation coverage may also vary.
The top common acceptable reasons for a trip cancellation reimbursement include:
- A death
- Illness
- Sudden business conflicts
- Bad weather
- Family emergency
- Death in the immediate family
A few typical acceptable reasons include a death in the immediate family, illness, business conflicts, and issues due to the weather.
Life Insurance
This insurance policy may be of three types;
- Air-flight Accidents- Which covers nothing except for flight-related events
- Accidental Death- Several travel insurance providers offer this kind of coverage
- Common Carrier- Common carrier death insurance provides coverage in case of death or dismemberment while traveling to a foreign country
How to Purchase the Best Travel Insurance?
Benefits levels and reimbursement levels vary greatly depending on where and the type of insurance you purchase. Here we discuss in-depth how to buy affordable flight insurance that offers excellent benefits and reimbursement levels:
Understanding the Factors that Affect Travel Insurance Costs
An in-depth study by SquareMouth reveals that a specific travel insurance plan for the 12 months averaged up to 6.6% for international trips and 5.9% for an international trip.
Typically, the cost of travel insurance depends on the following components:
Length and Cost of Your Trip
The cost of flight insurance increases depending on how expensive and lengthy your trip is.
Costs of Local Health Care
High health-care costs in remote destinations can increase the price of your trip coverage.
Medical Evacuation Insurance
If you have pre-existing medical conditions, your medical evacuation insurance cost alongside your overall trip insurance will go up.
Amount and Breadth of Travel Plans
The more benefits and risks your policy covers, the higher it will cost you.
Age
Typically, trip insurance costs drive up if you’re older.
Optional Supplements
The cost of purchasing travel insurance may also go up if you add optional supplements to your policy. It includes travel medical care, canceling for any reason, interruption for various reasons, and so on.
What Do the Best Travel Insurance Companies Offer?
Here are a couple of expected benefits that a great and popular plan should offer;
- Coverage for common travel countries, including the places you wish and plan to travel to
- Some degree of coverage for expensive items and electronics, as well as an option for the higher coverage limit
- Coverage in case of death, illness, or sudden medical attention
- Ensure 24/7 assistance
- Coverage for lost, stolen, and damaged items including jewelry, travel documents, baggage, and such
- Coverage in case of trip cancellation, transportation bookings, and cancellation of the hotel in case of sudden death, travel medical emergencies, death in the immediate family, or other time-sensitive emergencies
- Coverage for natural disasters, political emergencies, or other issues that require you to leave for your hometown
- Financial protection in case you go bankrupt
What Does Travel Insurance Not Cover?
Travel insurances don’t cover the following things;
- Extreme sports that have high risks of injury and death
- Acts you do under the influence of drugs, alcohol, and other controlled substances
- Fear of traveling to countries
- Learning to fly a plane
- Playing professional sports
- Medical travel
- Pregnancy
- and so on
Does Travel Insurance Offer Coverage for Pandemics?
Typically, travel insurance policies cover various unknowns. It includes an accident you can’t anticipate, such as falling during various adventure activities.
Travel insurance does not include losses caused indirectly or directly by foreseeable events. Since there are various government travel advisories, an epidemic does not count.
Can You Buy Travel Insurance while Travelling?
Yes, you can purchase travel insurance while traveling. However, if you buy a policy when traveling, you might need to wait a couple of days.
However, you can get access to coverage straight away if you’re injured and need an instant medical emergency.
How Long Does Travel Insurance Last?
Most travel insurance policies start when you get on the plane and end when you reach home. However, there are various types of policies that offer varying periods. These are;
Single Trip Policies
Single trip policies that come with trip cancellation offer in-depth coverage for your whole trip. These may last for one year; however, the time depends on your travel provider.
Extendable Single Trip Policies
Most policies without trip cancellation are known as International Medical policies. These provide you coverage for as long as you’re away from your home.
Typically, these policies last for a year; however, you may renew them for 36 months.
Annual Trip Policies
Annual trip policies are ideal for you if you are a frequent traveler. These policies offer emergency medical as well as medical evacuation coverage for various trips per year.
How Does Homeowners Insurance Help Travelers?
Many people lack knowledge about how your home and renters insurance offers coverage while you’re traveling.
Typically, insurance companies offer global coverage for your personal property up to an average of 10% or more of your coverage C limit. Apart from that, your homeowner’s insurance policy offers coverage for liability in case of accidents while you’re on the road.
Moreover, your homeowner policy may replace broken items and pay for medical expenses.
Is Travel Insurance Really Worth it?
All in all, trip cancellations and travel medical plans offer coverage for your trips. Typically, travel insurance policies will cover your health, travel, injuries, and illnesses.
Other than that, travel plans include coverage for prescribed medicines, personal liability, and emergency reunions.
