One of the best ways to protect yourself from unexpected occurrences during your travels is to secure travel insurance. Most banks offer this product as a safety net of sorts and a means of helping travellers gain peace of mind throughout their trip.
For those who do not really know about it, travel insurance covers financial losses or medical expenses that you might incur during your domestic or international journey. Typically, this insurance product has five major categories that you might want to know.
– Trip cancellation insurance. You will be covered in case you or your travel companions will have to interrupt, delay or cancel the trip (perhaps due to weather issues, injury or illness, problems with passports or visas, unexpected business conflicts, acts of terrorism, or accidents on the way to the airport).
– Travel medical or Major medical insurance. This provides coverage in the event that the policyholder falls ill or becomes injured during the trip. The difference is that travel medical insurance provides only short-term coverage (from five days up to one year), while major medical insurance is ideal for people who will be travelling between six months and one year or longer.
– Emergency medical evacuation insurance. If you find yourself in a remote rural area or any place where there is limited or no access to the necessary medical facilities, this insurance policy will cover medically necessary evacuation and transportation to the proper facilities.
– Accidental death/flight accident insurance. If such an accidental death or a serious injury due to a flight accident would occur, this insurance policy will pay benefits to the policyholder’s surviving beneficiaries.
It’s best to evaluate the nature of your trips, your health background and the activities you will be involved in to help you determine if travel insurance will prove to be especially helpful. You may consider, for example, your ability to pay for the full cost of a trip back home in case an emergency takes place and you need to make an unscheduled trip home, or whether you will be able to pay for medical care in case someone in your party with a health condition becomes sick. Factors such as these can help you figure out whether the insurance will prove to be valuable or not. Should you decide to get it, remember to carefully read through the fine print and ask the bank personnel to explain every policy so you can make a fully informed decision.
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