The importance of travel insurance
Even the best planned vacation can be interrupted by technical problems and emergencies. You lose your luggage. You slip or catch an insect and need medical treatment. These not only disrupt your itinerary, but can also cost you a lot of money.
That’s where travel insurance (also called trip protection) comes into play. Specially designed to deal with the situations and risks involved in travel, it provides coverage from the moment you leave until the moment you return home.
For example, travel insurance can reimburse you for any luggage or items you may lose during your trip. This is particularly important if you plan to buy something of high value, such as local antiques, or if you are bringing expensive jewelry or electronics.
Your standard health insurance also tends to be limited to one area of the network, so without travel insurance, you’ll have to pay for any hospitalization or medical treatment you receive while abroad. This can be very expensive, not to mention stressful – imagine being sick and broke in an unknown country! If you’re visiting a location where medical bills and other emergency procedures are costly, or where there are very real health risks, travel insurance is absolutely crucial.
Travel insurance is also very important if you plan to take a driving vacation. Many auto policies will not extend coverage outside of the country in which you live. The last thing you need to worry about is how to pay for a rental vehicle that was wrecked by another driver, or take care of repair costs for a car you may have hit (a risk anyone takes when traveling unfamiliar roads with a driver). unknown). rules).
Travel insurance can also provide protection against emergencies that are so specific to traveling abroad that they may not be covered by your standard insurance policy. This includes trip interruption. Any initial fees or payments you have made that would otherwise have been lost if you suddenly canceled your trip will be returned to you.
Travel protection plans may also provide assistance services such as an emergency hotline and medical transportation services. This is invaluable when a crisis occurs in a foreign country, where you may not speak the language or know the city well enough to locate the nearest emergency center. When you’re in distress or distress, or when time is of the essence and you need to get help right away, travel protection plans can be your safety net. You may be a stranger in a strange land, but you are not alone.
You may be asking yourself, “Why should I get travel insurance when I have really good regular insurance?” Many people are under the impression that their car, home credit card, and medical policies are so “big” that they would automatically provide protection anywhere in the world. That is not necessarily true. You have to read the fine print. If you don’t, and you don’t take the additional coverage provided by travel protection, then you may discover the limitation of your insurance policies the hard way: when you find yourself in an emergency and spend a lot of money (on top of the deductibles and copayments) with the hope of a very distant compensation. Travel protection is a sure guarantee of security. Now you can take your vacation with complete peace of mind, and isn’t that what vacations are all about?