Imagine this: You have worked very hard at saving money for months for that long pending family vacation, carefully planned your itinerary, and now the time for the vacation has finally arrived! Going on trips to spend quality time together is a very important aspect of everyone's life, and these moments call for excitement.
However, what if you or your family members experience sudden illness just before the trip starts or face an accident or unexpected illness while on a trip? If such unexpected emergencies happen and you have not bought travel health insurance, then such occurrences can wipe out your financial investments in one blow. This is where you can realise the true travel benefits of such policies. In this blog, we will cover why travel insurance is important.
What Does Travel Insurance Cover?
Travel health insurance serves as a specific category of insurance policies that helps you pay for medical expenses incurred while you are on a trip outside India. It also compensates you for an unexpected cancellation of the trip towards your Airline, Hotel and other advances already paid. Generally, you will find these travel insurance plans offering coverage under various scenarios, like:
Consultations With Doctors and Hospitalisation Expenses
- This is a very useful benefit of travel insurance in case someone requires visiting a doctor or availing facilities from a medical establishment. Owning a comprehensive International Travel health insurance can assist in meeting these costs, especially since the medical costs abroad can be prohibitively expensive.
Emergency Ambulance Costs
- When there is a medical emergency and the insured members need to opt for an ambulance service, they can easily do so without any hesitation, as travel health insurance covers these expenses.
Urgent Medication Costs
- Any medicines or medical tests specified by certified attending physicians during your vacation or trip can be covered via travel health insurance. This facility further helps to reduce the financial burden on yourself.
Repatriation Costs and Medical Evacuation (Plan Specific)
- In the event of the unfortunate demise of the insured member abroad, there are many legal formalities to be completed before the family receives the mortal remains for cremation abroad or repatriating the remains to India. Travel health policies enable the policy owners to avail of the repatriation benefit for covering these costs, which can be reasonably high running into a few thousand dollars. Similarly if the insured falls ill or meets with an accident at a location without proper medical facilities, transportation or evacuation to the closest medical facility will need to be carried out these costs are covered under the Medical Evacuation benefit. Hence travel insurance is both essential and cost saving at times like these It is one of the prime travelling benefits of having travel insurance.
Trip Cancellation & Interruption
Sometimes an unforeseen sickness, hospitalisation of even demise of the insured traveller or an immediate family member can occur before a trip. Your family could’ve spent lacs of money to make all travel arrangements including Airlines, Hotel, Car and Land Packages. Travel Insurance helps recover part of the non-refundable cost incurred by you and your family.
Now, that you have understood the importance of travel health protection plans, it is time to analyse the associated benefits. This will help you decide which plan will be perfect as per your requirements during the trip.
Benefits of Travel Insurance Plans
Although at first glance, one may confuse travel insurance benefits with travel health insurance benefits, the two are not entirely the same. While the former covers Travel Related Emergencies, the latter focuses on extending Medical Coverage for Sickness or Accident related treatment while the policy is abroad. However, in India, you will see all insurers clubbing the benefits of both insurance policy types into one.
If you are wondering about what are the benefits of traveling medical insurance plans, we have broken them down for you.
Travel Health Policy Gives You Peace of Mind
If you own travel health insurance with adequate coverage, you can relax and genuinely have fun during your trip, without the burden of unexpected medical costs running the trip. It goes without saying that hospitalisation and medical bills are often more expensive in foreign countries. Therefore, knowing that you are protected in the event of medical emergencies can relieve you of financial strain.
You Get Coverage for Accidental Medical Costs
An accident or even a minor injury can lead to hefty medical bills. Travel health protection plans help avoid these out-of-pocket expenses and simultaneously make sure that you receive best-in-class facilities while on vacation far away from home. Importantly, travel insurance abroad also covers Ambulance Expenses and Outpatient Treatment as part of the benefits.
Most Insurance Companies Give Trip Cancellation or Interruption Coverage
There can be instances when you or your traveling partner or immediate family member’s medical emergency can force you to cancel a trip or cut short the days. To protect yourself in these situations, you should mandatorily have a travel health insurance policy. These schemes help recover the non-refundable flight ticket costs and additional tour costs, thus reducing the negative impact of a disrupted vacation.
Coverage for Baggage Loss/Delay or Passport Loss
Sometimes even Delay or Loss of Checked In Baggage by the Airline Carrier can land your sought after vacation in disarray. You could accidentally lose your Passport, or even have a Flight Delay – travel insurance abroad covers unforeseen exigencies like these as well.
How to Choose the Right Travel Health Policy?
As you have already realised the importance of buying a comprehensive travel insurance plan, now you can proceed toward finding the most appropriate travel medical coverage. Below, we have given some important guidelines to consider while purchasing travel health insurance.
- Decide what type of travel insurance plan will cater to your needs in the best possible manner. If you do not take flights that frequently, then the best choice would be a single-trip plan. Alternatively, you can purchase a multi-trip travel health plan that will help you save both money and time in case you propose to make more than 3 trips abroad in a 12 month period.
- The best time for buying a trip health insurance plan is once the itinerary has been finalised. It will provide you with an idea regarding the additional cost for the insurance, as well as provide coverage in case the Trip needs to be cancelled at the last minute due to a family medical emergency. You must ensure that the duration of the travel insurance should ideally be as long as the trip duration to ensure comprehensive coverage during the entire journey.
- If the number of co-travellers involved is more and when you are going on a vacation with your spouse, kids, or parents, consider booking family floater travel health insurance.
- Finally, the purpose behind travelling can make a lot of difference. For instance, if you are travelling for education, a business trip, or a short tour, the insurer will ask you to state the reason behind travelling based on the Visa on which you . Accordingly, you will be offered coverage and the relevant premium amount.
Final Words
Without travel health insurance, you are not properly protected on your next trip, and any mishap could disrupt your trip and financial investments. Significant disruptions like a medical emergency, loss of baggage, or flight delay can not only disrupt the vacation but also leave a dent in someone's financials. Additionally, this brings an unmatched emotional and mental load.
At the end of the day, you can put an end to all these ‘what ifs’ by paying a nominal premium for travel insurance. After this, even if anything happens, you will still be financially protected by the insurance policy.
