Essentials About Travel Insurance

By Author: Neha Sharma
Total Articles: 170
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It is important to keep a cover for emergencies. Staying away from home brings in a lot of risk and uncertainties. Even a lot of planning can sometimes go wrong. Travel insurance helps to meet exigencies arising from a travel like an illness expense, loss of passport, etc.

What does it cover?

A travel insurance generally involves trip cancellations, loss of passports, loss of luggage, medical expenses and so on. Flight accidents, cancellations, delays, terrorist attacks, hurricane and sickness are also covered depending on the type of policy. The most important covers include:

1. Trip interruption or cancellation
2. Overseas funeral expenses
3. Medical treatment that include transportation to the facility.
4. Accidental death, injury or disability.
5. Delayed baggage or lost, damaged or stolen personal goods.
6. Hijacking or weather problems
7. Return of a minor

There are other specific plans that also cover any loss over adventurous sports, travel to high risk countries, rental car coverage, emergency cash transfers, concierge services, etc.

How can you ...
... apply for it?

Wherever you may be travelling, you can easily apply for a travel insurance online or visit the branch to avail one. There are various types that include for individual, for family, for a single trip, for multiple trips, medical expenses, for cancellations, etc. Some basic plans allow you to get instant insurance without medical checkups or complicated documentation and avail cashless hospitalization, in case of claiming while travelling. It can be obtained for an individual from 6 months to 70 years, depending on the bank from which you are applying.

For availing it online, visit the bank’s website, login with your net banking ID and password. Go to the insurance tab and select travel insurance. Select the type of plan needed, make the payment and you are ready to go.

There are some important documents to claim the insurance. For trip cancellations, you mainly need the claim form, a copy of travel itinerary, original tickets, statement from the airline authority about cancellation and a copy of any refund check/voucher. For medical claims, the most usual ones are the claim form, police FIR (in case of accidents), medical papers and reports (such as X-Ray, pathology, etc.), physician’s statement, bills and memos.

International travel insurance becomes really useful when you are travelling overseas, and a sudden medical illness emerges as these costs can be really higher in other countries. Even when the money needed is present, it sometimes becomes difficult to arrange them. With this insurance, let the company handle all these risks for you when on the go.

Author bio:

Neha Sharma is a student pursuing her M.Com. She loves to write on topics of her interest such as travel insurance and other financial products and services. Having spent considerable time researching about it, she has explained its details.