Travel Insurance 101

What is Travel Insurance?

Travel insurance (sometimes referred to as trip insurance) helps protect individuals from unforeseen events during vacations or business trips. You’ll find a variety of travel insurance plans on the market including ones that offer more basic and inexpensive coverage such as flight insurance or travel medical insurance or ones that are more comprehensive and expensive, including cancel for any reason travel insurance.

Flight Insurance vs. Trip Insurance

Flight insurance will usually offer benefits such as accidental death travel insurance should you fall victim to an airline tragedy, baggage protection should your luggage be damaged or delayed, and in some cases cancellation reimbursement. More commonly purchased though is full trip insurance which covers nearly any travel or medical mishap that could occur.

What is Travel Medical Insurance?

Full trip insurance will include travel medical insurance. Having this type of trip medical insurance can prevent travelers from incurring a life-changing expense. Americans are often unaware of how limited their U.S. health care plans are once they leave the country and, in some cases, their home state. It can provide invaluable coverage should you contract COVID and require hospitalization or medical evacuation to a nearby island or country where adequate medical care is available and necessary. Should the worst happen and death become a reality, travel medical insurance will even repatriate one’s remains to their home country for burial.

Trip Cancellation Insurance

The cancellation portion of travel insurance will usually cover weather cancellations, including snowstorms and hurricanes. It can also protect you should someone scheduled to travel or one of their loved ones suffer pregnancy complications. One of the most popular trip insurance plan upgrades is “cancel for any reason” insurance. This allows the policyholder to cancel their trip without having to suffer one of the typically covered reasons such as an injury, illness, job loss, etc. For “cancel for any reason” insurance, the policyholder will often receive between 50% to 75% of their trip costs back instead of 100%. Also, the insured must usually activate the “cancel for any reason” benefit on their travel insurance plan 48 hours or more before their departure date.

What is Trip Interruption Insurance?

When it comes to travel insurance, most people understand trip cancellation. However, they often ask what trip interruption insurance is?

Trip interruption insurance is another vital coverage. This benefit covers last-minute travel expenses should someone get sick or injured on their trip and need to return home prematurely. It even allows travelers to interrupt their trip if a family member back home encounters a medical issue.

Common Questions About Travel Insurance

Some common questions often asked about travel insurance are: How much does travel insurance cost? Should you get travel insurance? How do you buy travel insurance? We’ll provide answers to those questions here.

How Much Does Travel Insurance Cost?

Travel insurance typically costs between 5% to 7% of the trip costs you’ll be insuring. Naturally, this range can increase or decrease considerably depending on two main factors: age and trip cost. The higher the age and trip cost, the higher the travel trip insurance will usually cost.

Who Needs Travel Insurance?

Should you get travel insurance? Who in particular really needs trip insurance?

Families

Families on vacation should strongly consider it as they tend to be highly active and accidents can happen at any time.

Seniors

Seniors should never travel without trip insurance as the unfortunate reality of life is that our bodies only get more fragile and are more inclined to get sick as we grow older. Cruise vacations are one of the most highly insured forms of travel as the cancellation penalties are frequently more severe, and the chance for a medical evacuation are higher and more costly.

International Travelers

Certainly, international travelers will want travel insurance as we already discussed the limitations of many U.S. health care plans. Finally, business travelers should strongly consider trip insurance as well. Flight delays are a common reality and an emergency booking with another airline to get to that crucial meeting on time is often necessary.

How Do You Buy Travel Insurance?

So how do you buy travel insurance? To get a quote and purchase a policy, you will need to have the ages (and likely dates of birth) for each traveler, departure and return dates for your trip, the total costs for your trip, the initial date when you first put money down on the trip, and your destination(s). You’ll then want to find a reputable company to work with such as GoReady Insurance.

How to Find a Good Travel Insurance Company?

A good company will have a website that clearly communicates information about the benefits of the policy, provides several trip insurance plans to choose from, and has insurance specialists available should you want to speak with someone before purchasing.

Information You Need When Shopping for Trip Insurance

Before buying or speaking with an insurance specialist, you’ll want to consider your coverage needs, such as: Do I want high limits for the travel medical insurance portion of the policy? Do I need cancel for any reason insurance in case I change my mind or the pandemic shuts down travel again? Should I purchase high baggage limits based on the cost of the items I plan to bring?

How to Make Claims on Trip Insurance Policies

Once someone has purchased a travel insurance plan, they often want to know how they should go about canceling before they travel or how to go about making a medical or death insurance claim while traveling. The answers often differ based on whether you have left for the trip yet.

If You Have Not Left Yet

If you have not left, then the only benefits that would apply would be either Trip Cancellation or “cancel for any reason” insurance. In both of those cases you would contact the Claims Department for the insurance company you purchased from. That department’s contact information will be within your Summary of Benefits and Description of Coverage documentation as well as on the company’s website.

If You are Already Traveling

If you are already traveling, you’ll want to contact the insurance company’s Emergency Assistance Department, which is usually open 24 hours a day every day of the year. Those 24/7 departments will help coordinate medical care and even funerary arrangements.

Using Concierge Services

On a less urgent level, they often also have staff specializing in Concierge Services that can assist with restaurant reservations, lost luggage, legal help, and even identity theft.