• 31
  Aug
  2009

• Trip cancellation insurance - Cancel For Any Reason Benefit

  
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With the outbreak of swine flu in many countries across the globe, panic has spread all over the world and many travellers are cancelling their reserved trips due to the fear of contracting the disease. However, many travellers would incur huge losses if they have booked for non-refundable tickets.

This is a classic example for which individuals planning for long vacations are advised to buy annual travel insurance trip cancellation. Many of the tourist insurance plans keep the ‘Cancel For Any Reason’ benefit as optional and charge higher premiums for those individuals who have opted for the same.

Individuals who opt for this benefit would be reimbursed some percentage of the expenses incurred for booking the tickets. The percentage of reimbursement varies between 50% to 100% depending on the trip cancellation insurance policy.

Note that individuals who want to become eligible for the ‘Cancel For Any Reason’ coverage benefit of the annual travel insurance trip cancellation must buy the insurance policy within a specified number of days after you make the initial payment for the trip. While some providers insist that the trip cancellation plan should be bought within 15 days of the initial payment, others give you only 10 days to book the insurance plan.

• 24
  Aug
  2009

• Online flight ticket booking forms –inclusive of international travel insurance

  
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Individuals booking their flight tickets online should be extra cautious while filling in the online forms. This is because some sites add the cost of booking travel insurance along with the flight tickets unless the user opts out of it.

This means that, generally there is a tick box provided which is ‘checked’ by default where the form mentions that the travel insurance costs need to be added while booking. In case you do not want to avail this facility, you need to ‘uncheck’ the tick box. This is mainly important for the frequent travelers and companies who might have opted already for annual multi-trip visitor insurance plans or covered their employees under group insurance plans.

Though purchasing the international travel insurance may be quite beneficial while booking the flight tickets, overseas travelers may choose to scout around the web for better discount deals that would help in reducing the cost of insurance premiums. Otherwise, they may want to choose an international visitor medical insurance policy which is suitable to their needs rather than buying a standard benefit policy as they may have some pre-existing medical conditions.

Such a system of flight booking inclusive of visitor insurance should be made more transparent and user friendly where the user can consciously choose his decision at the time of booking.

• 23
  Aug
  2009

• Travel insurance coverage types

  
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Travellers can choose from a variety of visitor insurance policies which offer different coverage benefits suitable for various categories of tourists. If individuals plan to travel just once in a year, they can opt for single trip tourist insurance plans. Frequent travellers may be able to save a lot of money with annual multi-trip policies. In addition, people can choose between fixed benefits visitor insurance policies and comprehensive coverage benefits in the tourist insurance plans.

Tourists who are planning to travel to Europe or Canada can specifically opt for European travel insurance and Canadian travel insurance respectively in order to save on the premiums. Otherwise, if the travellers choose to visit multiple countries in the same year, they can choose visitor insurance plans with worldwide coverage.

Travellers going in groups generally find group visitor medical insurance plans very beneficial. Similarly family members including spouse and dependant children can be insured together with a family visitor medical insurance plan.

Coverage limits and benefits depend on the different policies and insurance providers who are offering the same. Trip cancellation benefits, adventure sports coverage, war and terrorism coverage, baggage cover, expatriation and emergency evacuation benefits and various other rider policies are optional coverage that the overseas can opt for to address the different travel risks.

• 20
  Aug
  2009

• Overseas business travel inevitable

  
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Businesses cannot skip sending their employees overseas as it is vital for attracting potential clients, marketing their products and services efficiently and also establish long-term customer relationship.

With the financial crisis on the horizon, the number of business travel bookings has come down and also people opt for economy class travelling as opposed to business classes which brings a significant drop for the airline profits. Travel companies are confident that the situation would revive over time as business travel is highly inevitable. Hence, lot of beneficial packages and products have been introduced.

The trend is expected to change especially for long flight journeys where companies would still send their employees in business class and probably cut the accommodation expenses during the overseas stay.Insurance companies are no-less in their creativity as they have introduced a lot of tourist insurance plans by which the companies can cut down expenses by purchasing group health insurance.

For travellers taking their family abroad if the duration of stay is longer, family health insurance is extremely important.Many people prefer annual health insurance policy as it is highly suitable for frequent travel either for business purposes or for leisure. The comprehensive coverage benefits offered by these visitor insurance plans are attractive and save on purchasing new travel insurance policies frequently.