WHY SHOULD I GET TRAVEL INSURANCE?
Peace of mind may be the cliché reason to get travel insurance but it is a well deserved one. Starting a long international trip is really exciting and peace of mind helps enhance this experience.
Four reasons we like travel insurance:
- Travel insurance refunds you for a one way ticket home in an emergency
- It has a no deductible medical benefit
- You get natural disaster coverage (remember Iceland’s volcano that closed airports across Europe?)
- It is good for a year of continuous travel. We also really like that travel insurance becomes your health insurance while you are travelling even if you are dropping your health plan before you leave
And for US passengers the cost of a one year travel insurance policy is often less than just one month’s premium for a US issued health care plan.
Insurance that is included with your tickets: Ask your Travel Consultant about the Post Departure insurance we include in every AirTrek for US and Canada residents (that’s right it’s included with your airfare!). Also ask how you can upgrade that policy to one that doubles your medical benefits and adds full cancellation coverage.
Why we like the upgrade to a Full Cancellation policy: Your medical and evacuation benefits double to $50,000 and $100,000 compared to the included insurance. Plus you get a cancellation benefit. You can take a contrarian view and say paying for full cancellation insurance is a bet against yourself and you would be right, but it is a bet worth taking. Our upgrade policy adds full cancellation coverage before and after departure and is your financial fallback position. Every month we work with clients in our customer service department who cancel without full cancellation insurance. All they end with is a meager refund from a few of the airlines in their itinerary. Most tickets issued today are nonrefundable and those that are come with penalties of 30-70%. Fully refundable airline tickets no longer exist in the marketplace. Having full cancellation insurance is really your only chance to recover 100% of your ticket and tour costs.
Residency Requirements
For travelers with a permanent residence in the US and Canada we offer two policies from Travel Guard. One is included with your tickets and another is an upgrade for additional cost.
For travelers whose permanent residence is in any other country we can offer you a Travelex or World Nomads policy. The coverage from both these insurers is excellent and very similar to our US/Canada coverage.
What Does Trip Insurance Actually Cover?
Medical Expenses and Evacuation: Travel insurance is fantastic for anything medical. There are no deductibles. You can upgrade to get higher levels. It will cover you for a wide variety of different costs related to illness or injury, including: doctor and/or hospital visits, X-rays and lab work, surgeries, medications, and physical therapy. A client fractured her leg on a multi-day hike in Kauai (Hawaii) and Travel Guard covered her carry out (evacuation), hospital and doctor visits in Hawaii, X-rays, plaster cast, pain killers, and six months of physical therapy once she was back home in Denver, CO.
The two major exclusions to medical and evacuation coverage are mountain climbing expeditions where ropes are used, and mental illness.
Trip Cancellation and Trip Interruption: These benefits are two sides of the same coin. Your trip can be cancelled before it starts or it can be interrupted after you depart. In either case it is usually an emergency that causes your trip to come to an end. Our included Post Departure insurance does not come with Trip Cancellation but it does come with a small amount of Trip Interruption in case an emergency occurs during your trip. Trip Interruption is best understood as an offset to the cost of a one way ticket home or a refund of your unused tickets whichever is worth more to you. And if you choose to upgrade to the Full Cancellation policy then think of Trip Cancellation as a full refund of what you paid, 100% of your trip cost. Trip Interruption is also much higher with the upgrade policy, 125% of what you paid, so more than enough to offset a one way ticket home or refund of unused tickets.
Airline or Tour Operator Goes Bankrupt or Strikes: This is a new benefit we asked for and it is great to have. It refunds the original cost of your unusable ticket/tour but does not pay to replace it. The one exclusion is if you wait to buy your ticket/tour until after it is publicly known that an airline or tour operator is headed into bankruptcy or planning to strike.
Terrorist Attack: The hotel bombings in Mumbai, India in 2008 were very much covered and were a reason why you could have cancelled or interrupted your trip.
Theft, Loss, and Damage: With travel insurance the coverage for personal items that you lose during your trip is decent but not great. It is definitely not a reason on its own to have insurance but since the loss can occur anywhere, not just on a flight, we think it has its merits. You leave your camera in the back a taxicab, or get your backpack stolen at a hostel, or you drop your phone, with this benefit you’ve got something to fallback on. Keep in mind two things though: 1) Limits like $500 for electronics, and 2) original receipts will be needed to prove full value (replacement receipts are worthless).
Civil and Political Unrest: When the airport in Bangkok, Thailand shut down for two weeks in 2008 over violent protests in the streets, and when a government coup took hold in the Fiji Islands in 2009, these events were not covered. Any route changes or unexpected costs people had relating to their airline tickets/tours was at their own expense and frustration. But don’t think we have it this way on purpose. No travel insurance policy will cover you for civil and political unrest and we have looked high and low for a policy that will.
24/7 Travel Assistance: One of the best resources you will have as an insured client is access to live travel assistance. Pick up a phone and call Travel Guard if you need help or advice while travelling. You will be tapped into a great resource for all things travel related. Plus they speak several languages. Use them to reconfirm your flights too.
We sincerely hope this information is helpful to you. Even with its limitations we still highly recommend travel insurance as part of your overall trip purchase, and in particular we recommend it for the medical and cancellation coverage, which are the two benefits travel insurance has the best track record for paying out a claim.
