As always, you get what you pay for, literally. The travel insurance industry is very broad. You can have coverage for just medical insurance or you can get under an umbrella and purchase full coverage. Often times travelers want to apply their spending to the fun parts of travel and cast aside the necessary. Finding the best travel insurance for your trip doesn't’ have to involve you emptying your pockets. Just remember, if you skimp on travel insurance, it may end up costing you more than you could ever imagine. In this post, we will give you 4 best practices for finding the best travel insurance plan for your trip.
Know Your Needs
Know your needs before purchasing travel insurance. Finding the best travel insurance policy for you is going to be based off your knowledge of your needs. For instance, are you in need of a policy for a large group or just an individual? Does your medical insurance cover you while traveling abroad? What activities will you be taking place in, adventurous or more leisurely, relaxing activities?
What we suggest is making yourself a questionnaire related to your travel experience with questions similar to the ones above. Or just download the travel questionnaire we made here. It will help you in deciding which type of coverage best meets your needs while shopping around.
Do Some Research
The internet is your oyster, so open it up. Seriously, you can search online and find out almost anything today. Sometimes we wonder if Google has slightly devalued college educations.
If you don’t know exactly what kind of travel insurance you are after, you can look on several different websites for a crash course. Many travelers like Seth Kugal discuss travel insurance coverage options.
Travel guru Mark Murphy with Travel Pulse goes over an incident and how travel insurance could really come in handy during situations.
Know Before You Buy
We cannot stress this enough, do not purchase the policy without understanding the benefits and limits. What this means is, do not assume the coverages by the titles. Hurricane Warning Benefit does not mean if meteorologists say there is a hurricane landing 400 miles east of your travel destination that you may cancel your trip.
We know the policy can be a bore to read. We also know that some things are hard to understand. If you do not understand it, or do not always feel like reading and rereading until you do, contact your provider and ask the “what ifs.” A good company will either be able to answer the questions for you or refer you to the person who can.
Understand Your Costs
Raise your hand if you want to pay for a $75,000 evacuation. Anyone? No? Okay, so you need to consider travel insurance. US Insurance Association reported If you think evacuation is something you do not need to worry about, you should ask the travelers that were in Nepal during the recent earthquake if that’s the case. Travelers that were in Nepal, were either wishing they had coverage for evacuation or grateful they did.
Another thing to consider is your medical insurance coverage. A lot of policy will not cover you if you are out of the country, especially most medicare policies. If your insurance does cover, they may have a high deductible or low coverage limit. If you get sick or break a bone, the country you are traveling to may require payment in cash upfront. Some travel insurance policies can guarantee that payment, so you are able to receive treatment and not get turned away for refusing to handover hundreds of your hard earned dollars.
With all of this in mind, the most important question you need to ask yourself to get the best travel insurance coverage is: What do I want to pay if something goes wrong? Often times, your answer will be nothing and coverage that includes everything will be your best bet.
