Travel insurance is an insurance product that allows you to travel protected and carefree in order to enjoy it. They offer coverage throughout the world so that travel does not prevent you from enjoying the best assistance and protection.
Its guarantees are adapted both to the duration of the trip and to the chosen place of destination or the purpose of the trip. It can include a wide variety of benefits, including the ability to cancel or interrupt your trip, receive emergency medical assistance, or avoid any medical expenses you may need throughout your stay. Thus, this insurance covers the previous risks but also the unforeseen events that may occur during the trip.
Why take out travel insurance?
Traveling always carries risks, and more if it is done abroad. Some credit and debit cards offer insurance coverage that protects you outside the country and some health insurance even have coverage abroad. In addition, public transport also has compulsory passenger insurance, but taking out a specific travel policy extends the protection.
These policies are usually contracted for the specific duration of the trip, but there is the possibility of subscribing them for longer depending on your needs. In fact, in the market there are also annual travel insurance for those who make several trips a year. As an insured, you decide the guarantees that best suit you and adapt to your specific case and thus choose the best travel insurance.
What do you need to know before taking out travel insurance?
Before taking out travel insurance, you must have booked transport and accommodation in order to calculate the price. Therefore, the insurer will ask you for a series of information, such as the start and return date, the number of travelers or the amount of the trip.
Travel Information
Travel insurance offers many possibilities. For example, specific protection can be obtained depending on the duration of the trip or the reason for it. In addition, depending on the number of people who are going to do it, the companies offer the possibility of covering several travelers or groups of more than 10 people in the same policy.
Reason for displacement
The reason for the trip is one of the points used by insurers to make categories among their travel insurance and thus be able to adapt the coverage to the specific case. Thus, depending on whether it is a vacation, a cruise, a study trip, business, the insurance will cover the expenses if you can not make your trip.
An example of how the reason for the displacement affects the policy is ski insurance. In this product, the insurer can assume from the reimbursement of the ski pass, ski lessons and relief expenses on the slope, to the replacement of employees in the case of companies. Within each of the reasons for the trip it is possible to make the insurance from the duration of it.
Duration of the trip
Depending on how long it will last, insurers offer different products. When it is a few days or a few weeks, the common travel insurance is contracted. But when what you want is a single insurance for several trips, it is possible to subscribe an annual coverage that protects you from the incidents that you may suffer in all the trips you make during that year, as long as each of them lasts less than 3 months. You can also take out travel insurance for a long stay abroad, which can be up to a year. The difference between them is in the term of coverage, and therefore in the price, but also in some of the guarantees they include, which will depend directly on the insurer.
What does travel insurance cover?
Within travel insurance, several types of guarantees are distinguished: those that refer to health care and those related to its cancellation. Normally, the application of all coverages conforms to a limit agreed between the parties at the signing of the policy. The most common coverages in travel insurance are those related to assistance to the insured during it. From help for medical problems to theft of your personal belongings.
Health care
One of the main guarantees of this type of insurance is medical assistance. This cover protects you in case of illness if you suffer an accident during your stay, either inside or outside your country of residence. In addition to guaranteeing medical, pharmacological, hospitalization and surgical expenses until the journey can continue, health care goes further and can offer:
- Travel and accommodation of a companion of the insured in case he is hospitalized.
- Prolongation of the stay as a result of an illness or accident.
- Sending medicines to the place where the insured is located.
- Transfer or repatriation of the insured and his companion.
- Transfer or repatriation in the event of death.
- Early return.
- Management and coordination of care services.
- Translation service.
- Replacement of the insured by repatriation in the case of work trips.
In addition to this protection, it is possible to find other guarantees such as the payment of expenses for loss of documentation or classes in the case of a study trip, for example.
Baggage coverage
Along with healthcare, lost or stolen luggage is the most contracted coverage. This guarantee gives you monetary compensation if your luggage is lost, stolen or damaged during transport, and also in the event that delivery is delayed when they have been checked. The insurer advises you to file the complaint and collaborates in the location procedures in addition to taking care of sending it to the place of travel or the residence of the insured.
In the event that the objects were not stolen or damaged during the journey by public transport, some insurers guarantee compensation also when the theft occurs inside a hotel room or a vehicle.
Delays
Some insurers offer coverage for delay so that when the trip is delayed through no fault of your own, you can receive compensation for the purchase of basic necessities, accommodation and living expenses and reimbursement of the expenses of using another means of transport.
Accident Coverage
On the other hand, travel insurance may include accident guarantees to cover the insured in case of permanent disability or their relatives in case of death.
Legal defence
Another coverage is civil liability and legal defense outside Spain. With it, the insured can receive telephone legal advice and have covered the expenses of legal defense as well as the advance of the judicial bond.
Does the insurance cover trip cancellation?
Another coverage that can be of great use within travel insurance is the cancellation of the trip or cancellation. With it, the company allows the insured to cancel their holidays at no cost, as long as the cause is included within the general conditions of the policy they have signed. Among the medical reasons for which a trip can be canceled free of charge are: illness, accidents or death of the insured or some of his relatives; citations for serious surgery; Transplants.
In addition, they usually include labor causes within the guarantee, such as incorporation into a new job, dismissal or the call for oppositions. The coverage is also activated if you are summoned to a polling station or a judicial procedure, if you are going to be given up for adoption of a child or if your companion cancels the trip and you are part of the same insurance.
Travel Insurance Exclusions
These insurances, like many health insurances, do not usually take care of the care or incidents that occurred as a result of a pre-existing illness unless it has a vital emergency character. Nor by pathological states produced by the ingestion of alcohol or other substances. Out of the coverage are also the claims caused by the insured himself, such as the loss of luggage by himself or theft, cancellation for non-urgent surgical interventions or epidemics.
In addition, in the event that the transport company or service provider covers the problem of the trip, such as the cancellation of a cruise or a flight, or accommodation expenses due to delay, travel insurance does not cover it. However, on some occasions it compensates financially to compensate for the difference between the amount paid by the service company and the actual expenses suffered.
Insured trips
To enjoy a trip with total peace of mind it is advisable to take out travel insurance, and it can be done at any time, taking into account that any event that occurred before the signing of the policy will not be covered. However, it is necessary to know that depending on the type of trip and policy that you want to subscribe, some insurers establish that the contracting must be done during the 7 days following the acquisition of the trip. In the case of exceeding this maximum period, it is possible that a grace period may be imposed on the application of the coverage, which means that during those days the user does not have the contracted guarantees, which will take effect after the grace period has passed or when the start date of the policy arrives.
When you travel you have to do it safely, but if you also take out travel insurance that covers possible incidents that you may suffer during the holidays you will be more protected and you can enjoy peacefully. Keep in mind the coverages and exceptions of each policy and rest assured, it is not a complicated process. If you enter the Rastreator travel insurance comparator you can compare the coverage and prices of the main insurers and choose one tailored to you.