The Pros and Cons of Travel Insurance
Lifestyle

The Pros and Cons of Travel Insurance

While planning a trip abroad, fancy hotel bookings, sightseeing options, exotic food options, and shopping ideas are usually given importance. However, travel insurance is something that gets ignored. Unexpected events and occurrences like flight delays, personal accidents, hospital stay, loss of belongings, and other risks are something not planned for. This is where travel insurance steps in.

Travel Insurance is that wing of the insurance domain that covers risks and losses incurred during travel. These include medical expenses, loss of luggage, flight cancellations, death or injury in a foreign land, and other similar risks.

The importance of travel insurance
Though people cannot avoid misfortunes, travel insurances offer peace of mind through monetary compensation while traveling abroad. It becomes even more important during a medical emergency since medical expenses abroad are usually expensive and can drain your entire budget. Even injuries sustained during leisure and adventure sport activities like skiing, skydiving or kayaking are covered.

Travel insurances also covers medical evacuation where you need not pay from your own pocket for expenses incurred during medical emergency transportation. Pregnant women enjoy standard benefits of travel insurance usually up to the 26th week of pregnancy. Senior travelers are also covered by these insurances, excluding any pre-existing illness.

What else is travel insurance important for?
You know that travel insurances cover unexpected losses and unfortunate events faced in a foreign land. However, there is more to travel insurance than just that. Well-known travel insurance providers also offer travel assistance with 24-hour emergency services. These include a professional and friendly approach with expert advice and assistance from local emergency services to provide resolution in the shortest time possible. The pros of having travel insurance include:

  • Travel insurance provides a sense of security and helps you maintain calmness even during awry situations.
  • As most medical health insurance plans don’t cover overseas medical expenses, it’s advisable to get a travel insurance before you head out of the country.
  • It helps save money in the long run since flight delays, cancellations and non-refundable hotels bookings for the wrong dates can be covered.
  • Travel insurances also cover trip cancellations due to natural disasters.

The cons of having travel insurance include:

  • Travel insurance can be costly and also unnecessary in case of certain flight cancellations and holidays.
  • It’s also a waste in case of last minute domestic trips and cheap domestic flights.
  • Travel insurances don’t cover everything. Most travel insurances don’t cover every big expense incurred in a foreign land, making it a wasteful investment.
  • If you cut short your trip, travel insurance generally doesn’t cover for the extra expenditure.
  • Occurrence of war and pre-existing health conditions are not covered.

Points to consider before buying travel insurance may include:

  • Pick the right travel insurance policy that suits the nature of your trip. The frequency of travel decides whether it’s a single trip travel insurance plan or an annual travel insurance plan.
  • You need to take into account the trip duration. The premium is calculated based on the duration of the trip.
  • Consider your medical history, including your lifestyle, eating habits and allergies.
  • The destination type should also be considered, such as whether it is a high-risk zone, famous for adventurous activities which could be dangerous, etc.

 

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