Travel Insurance

This is the time of the year when a lot of people are travelling. You may be travelling for short stays in the United States or you are travelling abroad for the summer. Wherever you are traveling to, you need to think about travel insurance.

Travel insurance can save you from financial ruination. Nobody expects to get sick or injured when they are on holidays but stuff happens. I heard of a case where a young adult travelling to an all exclusive resort did something silly and ended up in the hospital. This person had to get his mother to mortgage the house to pay the hospital bill. The thousands of dollars in medical fees is not the kind of cash most people have hanging around. Even conservatively if you have an emergency fund set up, I am quite sure that you would barely get one day in an out of country hospital, with the savings there.

Travel insurance for this person was probably less than $100 and yet this gentleman totally ruined his mother’s chances of retiring comfortably. Now if you are thinking that you would not do the same for your daughter or son if a similar situation happened, think again. People will do whatever it takes to protect and take care of their children at any age without thinking of what it will cost until the dust settles.

Now this is only one story of a young person not acting responsibly to get travel insurance and then doing something regrettable to end up in the hospital. There are thousands of stories out there. For most of us when we do our travel checklists we check off travel insurance.

If you work for a company with group benefits you may want to check to see if out of country insurance is part of your group plan. You need to know what it covers and for how long in case your holiday is longer than the coverage in the plan. Most plans allow for an extension of coverage for an additional fee.

If you do not have a plan or a retired person with no benefits then you may want to consider purchasing travel insurance for the year. This type of plan will allow you unlimited trips in a year as long as you keep the duration no longer than the plan allows. If you plan on a longer trip, then you call your plan administrator and ask for an extension. Whatever the fee it is worth it if you leave the country and a medical emergency happens. This is one time I will not say it is a self-fulfilling prophecy by getting insurance that something will happen. You are being proactive and responsible to ensure a peace of mind holiday with no financial surprises.

One word of caution, check the exclusions on the policy. You may think you are covered but find out there was an exclusion you were unaware of.

Now before you go over to Buffalo for a little shopping or Niagara for sightseeing and then cross over to the New York side, think about whether it is worth taking the chance without travel insurance. A little insurance premium goes a long way to peace of mind and spontaneity. Happy Holidays and remember call if you want more information on this topic or anything else you have read or heard about.