Travel insurance is insurance that is intended to cover medical expenses, trip cancellation, lost luggage, flight accident and other losses incurred while traveling, either internationally or within one's own country.
Travel insurance can usually be arranged at the time of the booking of a trip to cover exactly the duration of that trip, or a "multi-trip" policy can cover an unlimited number of trips within a set time frame.
What Does Travel Insurance Cover?
There are five main categories of travel insurance:
- Trip cancellation
- Travel medical
- Major medical
- Emergency medical evacuation
- Accidental death / flight accident
Travel Medical and Major Medical Insurance
Both of these types of insurance provide medical protection if the policyholder becomes ill or is injured while traveling.The difference between these two types of insurance is the duration of coverage:
Travel medical insurance provides only short-term medical coverage; the duration can be anywhere from five days to up to one year, depending on the policy.
Major medical insurance is for travelers who are planning to take longer trips of six months to one year or longer.
These types of insurance can help you cover medical expenses and locate doctors, hospitals, healthcare facilities and foreign-language services if you become ill or injured while traveling overseas. Whether you purchase medical insurance separately or you already have it, find out if you will need prior approval from your insurance company for any type of medical care.
Travel insurance gets a bad reputation sometimes, often because participants don’t know the details about the types of insurance and levels of coverage. When you have time to shop around, instead of rushing the insurance decision while booking your tickets, you have a better chance of spending less money and getting the coverage you need.
Most importantly, you have the option to choose between the single-trip policies you often consider when booking and the lesser-known annual policies, which provide coverage for every trip you make in a year. Generally, annual policies cost around the same amount as three or four single-trip packages, so you don’t have to be a weekly business traveler to see the benefits of a year-round plan.
You can pick a customized plan for yourself, your family, or your business, and students and healthy senior citizens can often get coverage at discounted rates. While you’ll be able to choose between domestic and global policies, you can also take advantage of cost-effective policies that limit your coverage to the specific area where you’ll be traveling.