When we talk about the insurance, we talk about the misadventures. The misadventures can happen anytime, anywhere and in any form. And, if we are not lucky when they occur, then they can hurt us badly. This is where travel insurances come in the picture. Unfortunately, very few people give a weightage to the travel insurance unless it is a mandatory requirement for the visa. On a personal note, I would never take a risk to travel without travel insurance. Let us talk more about the travel insurance.
Contents
2. What is covered under the Travel Insurance?
3. When should you buy a Travel Insurance?
1. What is Travel Insurance?
2. What is covered under the Travel Insurance?
What is covered under the Travel Insurance? Travel Insurance can be a generic one and covers the well-known emergency situations like trip cancellation, lost baggage or medical emergencies. Add-On may include other situations like passport theft, burglaries at home, early returns etc. Travel insurances also offer the convenience of emergency airlifts or repatriation of the remains, if something unfortunate occurs on a trip.
While buying travel insurance, you should consider following Travel Insurance Coverage Tips:
Loss of Checked-in Baggage
Few months back, one of my friend was travelling to Istanbul. The airlines staff at the departure airport missed her checked-in luggage and she was forced to wait for two days in Istanbul for the same. Unfortunately, when she got her luggage back at the airport after two days, it was again got stolen from the Istanbul Airport. Such incidents can happen with anybody. Whether the checked-in baggage is lost, damaged or stolen; proper travel insurance can help cover much of the cost of the items in your baggage. Travel insurance can also be useful in case of delay in arrival of checked-in baggage.
Are You Interested in Buying Cheap Flight Tickets, Please check This Guide : How To Buy Cheap Flight Tickets?
Trip Delay or Cancellation
Imagine the foggy winter situations at an airport in the Northern India. I arrived at Lucknow Airport on time to catch my flight to Kolkata. I had onward connection from Kolkata to travel further. Due to the dense fog at Lucknow Airport, my flight got delayed for more than 6 hours that day. Since both the flights were on different airlines (One from Lucknow and another one from Kolkata), the airlines did not oblige to honour my onward connection. I missed my connection and forced to buy another ticket for the next destination. I did not get any reimbursement, because there was no travel insurance with me.
This is where travel insurance can come handy. In case of trip delay or missed connection due to unforeseen circumstances, travel insurance companies are liable to pay a certain amount. If an insured trip gets cancelled because of any reason, for example, health issues of yours or your travel companion, then you can get certain amount back because of the travel insurance.
Trip Curtailment
If because of any reason, you are forced to discontinue your trip, then in many cases there may be no reimbursement for the booking cancellations for the rest of the trip. Travel insurance may help in such type of cases to recover the cost.
Medical Emergencies
During a trip to Bangkok in 2012, I was returning to the hotel room after having my dinner at Khao San Road. From the hotel lobby, I saw some fireworks in front of the lobby. To get a better picture of the fireworks, I moved towards the balcony while keeping my eyes on the fireworks and Oops! I plunged from the second floor to the first floor. There was a big hole in the balcony, where they kept a ladder to descend from the second floor to the first floor. While looking upwards, I couldn’t notice the hole and plunged down. Thanks to the ladder, I didn’t reach straight to the first floor, but rubbed against the ladder. Some small bruised were there on the external parts of the body, but overall, I was fine. It could had been a worst thing on the trip, but I was lucky enough that day.
Forward in 2018, I was travelling to Phi-Phi Islands, again in Thailand. My 5 years old daughter felt sick. Her condition was very bad on that tiny island and we were so worried that we started looking for a way to get out from Thailand as soon as possible. Next day, we moved to Phuket. Due to proper medication available at Phuket, her condition improved a lot in a day. It helped us staying longer in Phuket for two more days as per the original itinerary and we returned to India without any emergency situation.
But, these situations can arise anywhere with anybody. Our domestic health policies usually don’t cover the foreign destinations. In a foreign country, you may stuck paying the high cost of the hospitals unless you have the right travel insurance. Travel insurances are designed to cover the cost of medical expenses, personal accidents, hospitalization daily allowances etc.
Also, if you need to be flown to a better hospital or to a hospital back home, an emergency airlift may cost you thousands of dollars. Travel insurances are designed to cover such expenses.
Evacuation or Repatriation of the Remains
This is an extremely unfortunate situation for any traveller. If you need any kind of emergency evacuation from the destination or if something terrible happened to you and your relatives need to repatriate your mortal remains, proper travel insurance can cover those expenses.
Loss of Passport
If you come across a situation of documents theft or miss your passport in a foreign land, travel insurance can help you to recover the expenses incurred towards the re-issue of the passport. If you lost all your cash and cards in such incidents, emergency cash can be arranged by your insurer.
Home Burglaries
Some anti-social elements may notice your movements and in your absence they may rob your home. In case of such burglaries back home, while you are on a vacation, many travel insurances are bound to reimburse the cost.
Extreme Sports
Extreme sports are not covered by regular type of travel insurances. They need a proper travel insurance specially designed for the purpose of extreme sports like Scuba Diving, Surfing, Skiing, Trekking, Sky Diving etc. Do you really need a travel insurance for extreme sports?
During a trip to Bali in 2016, I was diving at Tulamben with my instructor. It was a ship wreck dive at the sinking place of World War II era USS Liberty. After the dive, we reappeared on the sea surface, where the strong currents were banging on the shore. My instructor assumed that I am a strong swimmer and he left me alone on the surface with the diving gears and cylinder attached to my body. I couldn’t swim against the strong current. At a point, I started drowning, but luckily my instructor realised that from the sea shore. He quickly came to my rescue and detached the cylinder from my back. Then, I swam back towards the shore and came out from the raging sea that day. Lucky again.
Decompression sickness is a most feared problem among the deep divers. It can occur anytime with slight deviation from the diving rules. It can be treated with the help of decompression chambers, but the cost of these decompression chambers are in the range of hundreds of dollars per day. That is why buying good travel insurance is necessary for such type of adventures.
3. When should you buy a Travel Insurance?
To keep it simple and straightforward, I prefer to buy travel insurance with the extreme sports cover for every foreign trip. Being an Advanced Certified Scuba Diver, I usually go for scuba diving during the trip. With the extreme sports cover I feel free to try other adventure activities like bungee jumping, paragliding etc in a foreign land.
I recommend you also to buy travel insurance for every foreign trip, whether you involve in extreme sports or not. If you don’t prefer to enjoy the adventure sports or go for simple hiking or snorkeling, it’s better to buy regular travel insurance.
In many advanced countries, it is a mandatory requirement to buy travel insurance with proper coverage in order to apply for a tourist visa.
Please Go Through This Post To Know About Some (Mis)Adventures During My Travel:(Mis)Adventures From My Life On The Road
4. When can you avoid a Travel Insurance?
You can avoid buying travel insurance for a vacation in your own country. Most of the people are equipped with a comprehensive medical policy in their own country. If something goes wrong, it can be handled properly with an existing medical policy.
In a fine winter evening of 2011, I met with an accident on the National Highway from Udaipur to Ajmer while riding my newly acquired bike in the eastern part of Rajasthan. I bumped on a high road breaker and oops again! The bike skidded for almost 50 meters on the gravels with my knees, elbows and other body parts badly damaged. There was a diversion on the road that I couldn’t see well in the time. The damaged had been done, to my body, to my luggage and to my bike. I spent that night in a great pain on a road-side dhaba nearby. Next day, I managed to reach Delhi somehow with the help of few friends. I had a hairline fracture in the collarbone.
I didn’t have any travel insurance that day. But, I was fortunate to have a medical policy to cover my medical expenses, because that happens in my own country. My company policy covers all the medical expenses in India for me and my dependent family members. I can use this benefit at any part of the country. So if I plan a travel to Leh or Kerala or North East India, I always remain under a medical cover. In this case, I don’t need to buy separate travel insurance.
Whether you buy a Travel Insurance or not, money management is an integral part of the travel planning. Read this post to get some insight on money management: Manage Money While Travelling Abroad
5. How to buy a Travel Insurance?
There are many ways to buy travel insurance. It mainly depends on the type of trip, the duration of the trip, geographical locations etc. Booking engines offer travel insurance while booking an airline ticket. Similarly, hotel aggregators offer travel insurance while booking an accommodation. Few credit cards also have a comprehensive travel insurance policy. Apart from these, there are dedicated travel insurances offered by various companies. As a customer, we have a wide variety of travel insurance on offer, but choosing the correct one is really important.
