Travel Insurance Guide

It is vacation time, and you are planning your holiday to a new place. You’ve booked your tickets and made reservations for your stay, but have you bought travel insurance?

Traveling uninsured can be one of the biggest mistakes, as you will be traveling to a new destination and there can be a range of exigencies that you might end up facing. From flight delays and cancellations to medical emergencies, there are a lot of reasons that can leave you stressed mentally, physically and financially. Hence, it is essential to buy travel insurance as it is to make your travel bookings.

What is Travel Insurance?

As the name implies, it is a policy that provides coverage for a range of emergencies associated with travel. A travel policy provides cover for flight delay, baggage delay or loss, trip cancellation or curtailment, hijacking, loss of travel documents and repatriation, and personal or third party liability while on a trip.

If you’re planning your next holiday or office trip to an overseas destination, having travel insurance is a must. But, before you start exploring the policies and buy travel insurance online, you need to have a clear understanding about travel plans, coverage offered and your requirements.

Why Buy Travel Insurance?

Traveling is often fraught with numerous unforeseen events, such as a flight delay, loss of baggage or travel documents, an accident or medical emergency, etc. In addition to this, the cost of medical care abroad can be expensive too.

A travel policy is designed to provide financial assistance for listed perils associated with travel, both domestic and overseas. When traveling, there can be a wide range of unpredictable situations that you might be in, which is why having a comprehensive insurance plan in place is very important.

Here are the Reasons why you should Buy Travel Insurance –

  • Flight Delays or Cancellation

Traveling can be fraught with delays and cancellations of flights due to bad weather, emergencies and/or technical glitches. In case of such a situation, you will have to spend out of your pocket for all the costs with respect to accommodation, food, etc. But, if you have insurance, your insurer will take care of all these costs. Besides this, if you cancel a trip due to a valid reason, your insurer will even cover your travel costs.

  • Loss of Travel Documents and Checked-In Baggage

Losing your travel documents or checked-in baggage in a new place can leave you distraught! But, if you have a cover for your travel, your insurer will take care of all such issues.

  • Emergency Illness

Medical emergencies generally come uninformed. While handling a medical emergency when you are at home isn’t that much of an issue, it can get tricky when you are travelling. Domestic and overseas travel insurance covers emergency medical treatments, and some policies even offer cashless hospitalization at their network hospitals.

  • Coverage for all

There are individual and family travel insurance plans available to choose from. So when on a family vacation, you can buy a single insurance policy for the entire family, and most policies cover dependent children travelling with adults. Hence, depending upon your need, you can buy the most apt travel insurance policy.

  • Buying Convenience

Unlike most insurance policies that require filling lengthy forms, you can buy travel insurance online quickly and conveniently.

Tips to Choose the Right Travel Insurance Policy

Insuring your travel is a pragmatic thing to do as you would never want to end up in a helpless situation. The importance of buying insurance is even more important when you are traveling outside your country. Besides this, traveling with inadequate travel insurance is like traveling with no cover at all. So, here are some tips which would help you choose the right policy: –

  • Asses your Requirements

Like all other insurance policies, assessment of your requirements is the first step in buying a travel insurance policy. Whether you need an individual or a family cover, single-trip or multi-trip, business trip or personal vacation, there are a range of policies to cater to it all. So, start with the type of cover you would want to have on your travels.

  • Understand Features and Benefits

Understand the features and benefits of a travel insurance plan before you consider buying it. Only when you understand the nitty-gritty of a plan, will you know whether or not it meets your requirements. Also, make sure to read the policy terms and conditions, features and benefits, inclusions and exclusions, and other clauses in the policy.

  • Choose the Right Policy Duration

Depending on your travel plans, you need to choose the duration of your policy. A single trip policy provides cover only for a single trip. On the other hand, a multi-trip policy covers you for all the trips that you make in a year, and is more suited for frequent travelers. However, when you buy a policy, always check for the duration of the cover. It is always better to buy a policy with a slightly longer duration than what the duration of your trip is.

  • Check whether the Destination you are Traveling to is Covered

Do check whether the policy you are buying covers the destination you’re planning to travel to or not. That’s because different policies have different terms and conditions with respect to geographical coverage. In case you buy overseas travel insurance, it is important to check the sub-limits and the clauses. In case you are traveling to higher risk areas, the premium of your policy may be higher, along with stricter restrictions.

  • Understand the Claim Limit

Every travel policy has specific limits with respect to every cover offered by it. This implies that for every peril like medical emergency, loss of travel documents, injury, etc., your policy will only cover you up to a specified limit as defined in the policy. So, don’t forget to check the various covers along with their specified limits.

With the kind of coverage it provides, travel insurance is a definite necessity when traveling. However, when you buy a travel insurance policy, it is unequivocally important to consider all the above points in detail, to select a policy that caters to all your travel needs.

Happy Vacationing!