Travel Insurance From Insurance By Steve

Stuck Out On A Limb Without Travel Insurance

It is 10 minutes to midnight and you and your fellow travellers are still waiting patiently to hear news of your flight back home. Everyone is feeling that patience is wearing thin when the word everyone dreads is highlighted on the computer monitor above your head. Your flight is CANCELLED. It has taken 4 hours of waiting around, reading books and newspapers to discover this. Everyone is understandably agitated as a universal groan passes around the passengers. You start to retrace your steps back to the flight desk where you are to be informed of your plight. Gathered in an arc like refuges you listen to the less than comforting words of the sole remaining member of the airline staff. No flight until same time tomorrow and no hotel room offered to you as compensation for the delay. The reality of the situation descends upon you. Your luggage is somewhere but nowhere. Like the final scene from Raiders Of The Lost Arc, your luggage is buried deep within the luggage handling system. Do you wait 4 more hours to eventually retrieve it or now begin your search for somewhere to rest for the night?

This is the situation I found myself in when abandoned at Schipol Airport outside Amsterdam. I ended up deciphering hotel adverts on a board at the entrance to the airport to find a bed for the night. A few phone calls later and I was on the metro line to find my hotel as it approached 1am in the morning. The extra day spent in the city was fun and eventful as I had both time to investigate the city in the morning and spend the afternoon in a sports bar with newly aquainted Spanish football supporters as we watched Spain beat Romania 5-1 in the World Cup Finals. But by the time I boarded the plane the following day, I realized that my additional stay had cost me a couple of hundred Euros. Needless to say, once I was home, my travel insurance documents were one of the first things I attended to.

What had began as a minor flight inconvenience had turned into an exercise in paperwork gathering when I finally submitted my claim. I was however rewarded for my efforts and pleased that the claiming process worked. I had previously always doubted as to whether travel insurance was all policy wording and excuses for not paying out.

I can imagine how frustrating it must be when people have planned their one yearly chance to escape the rat race for a couple of weeks only to find it ruined by delayed flights, lost luggage, stolen money or even severe illness and tragic injury. I have heard some people say that they travel without insurance because they have never had a problem before. I cannot see how this is wise advice. For most of us we spend as much on travel insurance as we would spend on one meal at a restaurant. Considering all the eventualities it covers, it seems to me a no-brainer that buying travel insurance is as necessary as packing our passport.

Typical Travel Insurance Benefits

Examining any travel insurance policy will unearth the following universal benefits and exclusions.

Exclusions - There will be lots of these. Many of these make sense whilst others appear to many of us as a ploy to avoid paying out. Many sporting activities are usually excluded. So if you plan climbing the Matterhorn, parachuting or playing polo and you suffer an injury, do not expect to be covered. The list of excluded sporting activities can be quite extensive though some of the exclusions are restricted to competitive events. An interesting one is go-karting since many people will have a go at this on a family day out. The other primary exclusions are pre-existing health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes or known breathing problems. Notable exclusions include the effects from alchohol, drugs and sexually transmitted diseases (bang goes my holidy fun!). Being shot by terrorists or blown up by enemy warplanes are also the kind of things that they won't be prepared to pay us for. So what is left?

Medical Cover - They are willing to pay our medical expenses when we get ill or are injured outside of a non-excluded event. This will also include a daily payment for receiving treatment in a hospital and getting us home by ambulance, though flying by air ambulance, may be an additional option. There are also other peripheral costs associated with illness in a foreign land. We may need to stay in the country longer and we may need someone with us. Both incur additional travelling and accommodation costs. Plus we may need the assistance of a nurse to accompany us on our return home. Emergency dental treatment should also be covered so that you don't have to spend the rest of holiday with a mouth full of pain.

Cutting Short The Trip - This is compensation for missing out on part of your trip or vacation for example when you have to return home when you still have 7 days booked in a 5 star hotel. The cause for shortening your stay will usually be on the grounds of illness but could be because of an emergency back home when you have no option than to return.

Delayed Or Missed Departure - Should the baggage handlers or traffic control decide to interrupt your trip by going on strike the travel insurance should pay you an hourly rate of compensation. Should you miss your departure due to reasons not under your control and have to find overnight accommodation then the insurance company will reimburse you for the cost.

Loss Of Money And Possessions - Limits will be placed to cover the loss or theft of your passport, credit and debit cards, cash, tickets, luggage, cameras and any other possessions you took with you on the trip. You may be offered a variable rate of cover for these items depending upon the size of premium you are willing to pay. They payout the replacement cost of the item lost or stolen.

Personal Injury - You should be able to claim, up to a limit, for any injury you incur that leads to some disability or fatality. This would include air disasters.

3rd Party Public Liability - Insurance cover for any damage you cause to other people or their possessions whilst on your trip.

Legal Services - A limited amount of compensation to cover the cost of employing legal services to either defend yourself against a claim or claim against others.

Natural Disasters - Whether they be hurricaines, plague epidemics, tidal waves or some other untamed force of nature then the insurance policy should cover you for repatriation costs to return home in one piece. Recent years have shown these are not as uncommon as we might think when we consider the swin flu outbreak in Mexico and the 2004 Asian tsunami disaster.

It is important with any travel insurance claim, to contact the insurance company as soon as feasibly possible and preferably before you have paid out any money out of your own pocket. Only then will you know whether your prospective claim has been authorised by the insurer.