You could acquire travel insurance from a variety of sources such as the cruise carrier or the airline directly, your credit card and obviously, a travel insurance company. Generally speaking, travel insurance would be costing around only 5 percent of your entire trip costs.
The travel insurance coverage would be varying depending on your source and your individual policy that you purchase. Travel insurance is essential as it is going to safeguard you against all sorts of unforeseen misfortunes such as flights getting canceled because of bad weather conditions or baggage getting misplaced or stolen.
Travel insurance is great for minimizing the financial risks involved in traveling, illness, accidents, missed flights, lost baggage, canceled tours, terrorism, theft, emergency evacuation, travel company bankruptcy, and even bringing back your body home in case you die during the trip. The potential loss varies from traveler to traveler depending on factors such as if your air tickets are refundable, what portion of your trip is prepaid, the baggage value, your health condition, your travel destination, the financial status and health of the airlines and the tour company and the type of coverage you are having. If you were wondering, why it is necessary to buy travel insurance, you would realize that travel insurance is as essential as car insurance or a home insurance in the following situations.
Medical Emergencies or Evacuation
This is practically the most important reason for buying travel insurance. Hospital expenses are exorbitantly high in the USA and can be as much as $10,000 every day. Emergency transport home or medical evacuation could be as expensive as $100,000. Before getting your travel insurance check the cover for emergency evacuation, cover for any emergency dental treatment and the limits relating to medical expenses.
Trip Cancellation
This is really very useful in covering the costs in case your trip is canceled suddenly due to some unforeseen conditions such as accident, illness, death in the family etc. The most important point to keep in mind is that if you wish to avail any benefit from this section, you need to buy travel insurance at the time you are booking the tickets. Remember that trip cancellation is not always covered by all the travel insurance plans. A few would be covering the non-refundable costs. You must read the fine print well and check all the terms of the insurance policy and coverage.
Personal Belongings and Baggage
Loss of personal belongings often is the motivating factor behind buying the travel insurance, but logically speaking it should not be such a big issue as things could always be replaced but your health cannot be compromised in any situation. You are expected to take complete care of your belongings like a responsible adult. This implies that your claim may not be entertained if you leave behind your camera carelessly in any shared room or your car overnight. Also, in case you are traveling with any expensive laptop or other valuables you could opt for some insurance plans that ask you to specify all these valuable items for covering their higher value. Always examine the description of coverage and specific policy benefits.
If your baggage is delayed or lost travel insurance would be paying you for your hassle and trouble generally, as much as $500 for every lost baggage and $100 to $300 for any baggage delay. Damaged and missing bags are quite a common phenomenon in the travel world. So stay covered.
Personal Liability
If you accidentally cause any damage or are involved in any accident and you are held responsible and accountable for it, the insurance could be covering your liability, as well as, your legal expenses, in such a situation. However, you must remember that not all travel insurance plans provide this sort of cover.
This is a guest post by Andrew Thompson. He is an experienced insurance agent and consultant currently attached to a reputed private insurance company in Boston. he has recently taken to blogging and is constantly offering her expert advice on all sorts of insurance including car insurance, home insurance and travel insurance.
