These days, the majority of travel insurers offer packages with coverage for trip cancellation and interruption, baggage loss and medical protection and even baggage tracking. This seems to be the sort of plan travellers who require that sort of thing go for.
Travel insurance could help to guard against the considerable financial risk of planning a holiday – from lost flights to lost luggage, and even rental-car woe.
Trip cancellation
This benefit refunds, or assists in refunding, prepaid and nonrefundable expenses if some unforeseen event forces you to cancel your trip.
For instance, Dad slips and strikes his head getting down some stairs at home, and later, one day, you find out that he needs to cancel plans because he is still experiencing symptoms of a concussion; in this scenario, you can claim a ‘covered reason’ for retaining the cost of the lake house rental or airfare ticket.
You could elect to purchase disability coverage on its own as a standalone policy, or with a comprehensive policy or premium credit card that offer disability coverage as a benefit and extension of its perks. Each of these plans offers disability coverage, under which your premium buys you access to a free look period. During this time, you can cancel and receive a refund if that’s what you want to do.
Trip interruption
With trip interruption insurance, if you must abandon the trip early due to a covered reason, non-refundable travel expenses such as airfare and transit or tour reservations that go unused might be reimbursed, along with last-minute flights home or to other locations on the agenda.
Suppose you are on safari in Tanzania and learn that your mother has collapsed with a case of pneumonia and you must now go home immediately. A number of card travel protection plans will cover you for trip interruption (a maximum 150 per cent of your insured trip costs). This is why you should carefully review the policy.
Medical expenses
The policies will cover a medical emergency and also will refund any money lost due to unexpected trip cancellation, as well as reimburse lost luggage or other valuables – useful if your regular health plan cannot cover expense overseas, or if they do but with too low a bottom line.
Your destination/itinerary and the activities you plan on doing determine the types of coverage that will be needed. What types of extreme sports are you doing? Getting that kind of cover should be high on your list of priorities.
Travel medical policies can be a good idea, although it’s a good idea to ensure that your current health plan does or will cover foreign travel, or that you don’t have a highdeductible plan — which might not cover you while abroad. Stand-alone plans can be purchased, but comprehensive travel insurance packages quite commonly include emergency medical and evacuation coverage along with other protections, and could end up being cheaper than if you purchased the elements separately.
Baggage coverage
Medical and emergency medical evacuation or repatriation. Travel insurance plans generally provide at least some coverage for lost luggage and personal items, but the limits that apply vary accordingly to the plan. Many provide limited per-item limits that cap how much an insurer will pay out, per item00 per item, with higher limits for jewellery and electronics equipment), and will also include some total policy limit to cap out how much the insurer will reimburse in total if all your items are stolen while you are away.
This often serves as protection against items lost and stolen from hotel rooms or on busy airport roads; compensation can also be sought if you are delayed or your checked bag is mishandled by an airline.
Those needing extra coverage, for example, athletes travelling to compete or outdoors enthusiasts transporting sporting equipment, might want a policy with higher allocated amounts, requiring receipts before full recovery can be made.
Emergency evacuation
Travel insurance that provides evacuation coverage will get you home in the event that you are evacuated due to extreme weather events, acts of nature or acts of terrorism. Some travel insurance policies include this feature as part of the standard coverage, and some companies offer it separately.
Before you buy an insurance policy, read its small print to see what will be covered and whether the plan will exclude patients with pre-existing medical conditions or patients of a particular age, say, over 50. You can upgrade your policy on the spot: cancelling at a later stage will come with a penalty, and to add to that benefit, you will get worldwide evacuation services.
Your travel policy may include air flight accident coverage, which pays a benefit in the event of your death in an aircraft accident; and coverage for your luggage against loss, for example if it is lost or stolen during your trip.
