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Travel insurance may offer some outstanding benefits for your next trip, like flight delay, lost luggage, and cancellation reimbursement coverages.
But, what if a health emergency happens while traveling? Before taking that next trip, check in with your insurance professional to see if you need additional health insurance coverage for your travels. Here is a short checklist:
• Do I really need travel insurance if I have health insurance? Maybe. Your health insurance policy may have reduced benefits and increased deductibles or higher out-of-pocket maximums for out-of-network providers. Travel insurance may be a better option for global travel.
• Aren't the benefits of my credit card enough? Probably not. Depending on the credit card and benefits included, you may find a variety of exclusions as well as only a reimbursement of the trip cancellation expenses due to a sickness or injury while traveling.
• What about serious sickness or injury? This one is tough. Depending on where you are when it happens, a med-evac or air ambulance might not be covered under any policy. While air transport to a medical facility may be common in populated areas in the United States, when traveling to remote areas or outside the United States such transport might not be common practice or available at all, or it could be very costly. If traveling with someone with a greater potential for sickness or injury, including the elderly or children, or with someone who has a pre-existing condition or compromised immune system, you should inquire with a travel or healthcare professional and have a plan in place before the need for medical services abroad arises.
Don't rely on any one policy to be the quick fix for all your travel needs. Consult your insurance professional for travel and benefit options.
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