Finding Great International Travel Insurance

Many people think that travel insurance is a type of medical insurance which covers the cost of their illnesses or accidents when they are travelling. However travel insurance is much more than just that. It can cover emergency situations like lost baggage, wallet theft or trip cancellation due to sudden illness or death in the family or fire or flood in the house, etc. A great way to get cheaper travel insurance is to go to a travel insurance quoting engine and enter $0 for your trip cost, this waives the ‘trip cancellation option’ and makes trip insurance much cheaper, starting at $20 per person while still including all the extensive benefits described. If you do this, it means you are not expecting to cancel your trip, but if you intend to go anyway, and just want to be protected for a low cost, this is the best way to do it. Let’s see what else you can do to get the best international travel insurance.

What to Look For?

When you search for a cheap and good travel insurance plan you will come across countless options. This being a huge industry, everyone wants to have their hand in the cookie-jar and so you get a bewildering number of options, which can confuse you. So, better you keep some objectives while shopping for a good plan.

First make sure that the plan you are convinced with covers a high limit on your medical expenditure. Good providers offer coverage up to $100,000, though there are more expensive policies too that cover you, for higher amount. As such, maximum coverage you can get is of about $1,000,000. However, commoners don’t go for such a high amount. High coverage is important because in the case of your illness, injury or need of serious attention and professional care, your hospital bills should be covered.

Second important thing you should ensure is your policy should cover emergency evacuation. If you are hiking in the Himalayas or Alps and break your leg, the policy should provide coverage for your evacuation to hospital. So also, in case of a natural disaster when you are abroad if you need to be evacuated to some other place, the policy should cover that cost too. Usually you can get coverage of $300,000 for this.

Other important thing is evacuation should also mean evacuation from the hospital to your home country. Normally emergency evacuation includes this, but you better double-check if the company will offer coverage of expenses of your flight back home.

Coverage for Electronics

Most of the companies offer a small coverage, generally up to $500 for electronics as their basic coverage. In such a case, you can buy supplemental insurance to get higher coverage. Prices of policy vary depending upon the country you visit.

A good international travel insurance should have the following features:

• Coverage for most countries of the world
• Coverage for sudden illnesses and injury
• Coverage for lost, stolen or damaged possessions like baggage, jewelry, documents, etc
• 24-hour emergency services and assistance
• Coverage for your electronics
• Coverage for cancellation like the trip, flight, hotel booking, etc
• Coverage for emergency disturbance in the country of travel, which cause you to return home early
• Coverage for any legal expenses if needed
• Coverage for personal accident
• Monetary protection if any company you use for travel goes bankrupt while you are stuck in a foreign country

What is Not Covered?

This is also important to know beforehand. Most companies don’t offer coverage for accidents taken place during extremely adventurous activities like paragliding, bungee jumping or hang gliding. However if you want coverage for these, you can opt for extra insurance.

Another expenditure not covered usually by most companies is that of injury caused by you to someone on the road, which is named third-party liability.

Alcohol- or drug-related situations or rashness in handling your baggage and possessions is also not usually covered. Here definition of “recklessness” differs from company to company.

Having knowledge about all these points may help you to find good international travel insurance; remember, when you plan to travel abroad get first a great insurance plan.