We offer only ONE piece of advice when it comes to travel insurance: “Make sure your out-of-country trip is protected by insurance”.
If you need insurance advice beyond that, you’ll want to consult an insurance professional.
We always provide our clients with two different insurance quotes, and we are happy to provide copies of the policies ahead of time for you to look over. We have occasionally frustrated our clients who are looking for a recommendation about which insurance is the best choice for them, when we refer them back to the written policy or to the insurance company.
There are two reasons we don’t give insurance advice:
- Our passion and expertise is travel, not insurance.
- As travel advisors we are legally required to offer travel protection, but we are not allowed to interpret the coverage.
Here is a bit of guidance to help you when you are speaking with an insurance pro.
Three Aspects of Travel Insurance
Most travel insurance policies bundle these three aspects together, but if you only wanted one of them, a good insurance broker can help you with that:
- Trip Cancellation. This covers you if you are unable to make the trip (for specified reasons). Without this coverage you are risking whatever you paid for the trip.
- Trip Interruption. This is for annoying things like flight delays or when your luggage goes missing. You are not mitigating much risk with this type of insurance, but it does make your life way easier, when things go wrong.
- Travel Medical. This is the critical one, and you are taking a significant risk if you leave home without this. It can cost you tens of thousands of dollars if you are caught without this type of insurance. There are no circumstances that I can ever see where I would leave home without this – including those who live near the Mexican or Canadian borders and may drive across for a few hours.
Here is some of the rationalization we sometimes hear from people about insurance, and why they may want to talk to an insurance professional about the flaws in their logic:
“Health Care is Free in Europe/Canada/Australia/NZ”. It is true that in almost every developed nation that health care is available to residents without a direct charge. This is NOT extended to visitors, who will pay (a lot) for medical attention. We often hear this from clients going to Alaska because some of those cruises start and finish in the United States. You will be in Canadian waters for most of that trip, and the small communities you visit in Alaska may require evacuation for a serious medical issue to the nearest major hospital – probably in Canada. They will undoubtedly be polite about it, but you will pay dearly.
“I’m insured on my credit card”. Check the fine print – you may or may not be covered, and there may be significant limitations to that coverage. Unfortunately, this probably means reading through a few hundred pages of legal double-speak, but if you’re relying on such coverage, make sure you know what’s in there (and what is not).
“I’ll just fly home if I have a problem”. This is truly asinine, and a really poor risk mitigation strategy. You are betting everything you own that if you become sick or injured, you’ll be able to fly across the world on a commercial jet.
Cancel for any reason?
One final thought on insurable reasons. Most travel insurance policies will cover cancellation for specified reasons. Usually this means you or your travel partner are not well enough to travel, there’s a death in the immediate family, your house burns down etc. People get into trouble when their version of “catastrophe” does not align with that of the insurance company. As a spoiler-alert, the insurance company (and their army of lawyers) is always going to win this argument. So you will pay more for a trip cancellation policy with a “Cancel for any reason” clause, but it might be worth it.
A case in point currently is travel to places with suspected outbreaks of the Corona Virus.
We have been recently advised by several different travel insurance providers that they do NOT cover people’s fear of travelling due to emergent situations. “Emergent situations “ can include epidemics, terrorist activity, natural disasters or about 1000 other things the lawyers have specified.
All of a sudden, the extra amount for ‘cancel for any reason’ seems like a bargain.
To summarize:
- Always make sure your out-of-country trip is protected by insurance.
- Be informed about what you’re buying when you purchase insurance
- If necessary, consult an insurance specialist
Planning a Cruise? I’d love to help! Click here to get in touch today.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sue Bradley
Sue Bradley
