Drive Protection Review
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This travel insurance plan is perfect for…
- Driving vacations-This plan is an excellent choice for travelers taking a driving trip, as opposed to flying or an international trip
Overview of Drive Protection from Access America:
- Provides $1,000 of emergency medical and accident coverage
- $250 coverage for lost, stolen, or damaged baggage
- $15,000 of emergency medical evacuation coverage
Access America Drive Protection is a unique travel insurance policy for people who aren’t flying to their destination, but have chosen to drive instead. Many Americans prefer driving vacations as a way to not only save a little money, but to see some sights along the way that they would otherwise miss. Many travelers, however, still want some protection against unknown events such as accidents, theft, or even bad weather. For about $7 a day, travelers can buy insurance coverage for their driving vacation and protect themselves from financial loss in the event of troubles on the road.
Essential Coverage for Driving Vacations
Unlike travel insurance plans for individuals, Drive Protection covers the entire family (two adults included, children under 17 are free). This unique coverage is available for round-trip travel to a destination that is at least 100 miles from your residence.
Access America Drive Protection provides coverage for trip interruption, emergency medical, emergency medical transportation, travel accident, lost/stolen/damaged baggage, and delayed trips. In addition, Drive Protection has some added benefits specific to people embarking on a driving trip, such as; vehicle return benefit, trip inconvenience benefit, and roadside assistance. Finally, Drive protection offers some of Access America’s extra “customer support” style services, such as 24-hour hotine assistance, concierge service, online policy modification, and online claim submission and progress tracking.
Where to buy this policy:
1. Buy direct from the company- Get a quote and purchase this plan directly from the Access America website here
2. Compare this plan with other plans- The best way to buy travel insurance is to use a comparison website (similar to using Expedia or Travelocity for airline tickets). There are several, but we recommend a comparison site called Squaremouth.com to get instant quotes and purchase online. Squaremouth.com only works with reputable companies, and you can get instant quotes and purchase instantly online with a credit card.
What is the coverage with Drive Protection?
Trip Interruption
Trip Interruption coverage is intended for losses that happen after departure, and cause you to end the trip early. From the policy certificate: “Trip Cancellation coverage provides benefits for loss(es) you incur for trips canceled up to the time and date of departure. Trip Interruption coverage provides benefits for loss(es) you incur for trips that are interrupted or delayed after the time and date of departure.”
If a covered reason causes you to cut the trip short, you can recover non-refundable payments you have already made. This could include an injury or illness while traveling, but can also cover reasons at home. For example; your mother gets sick and needs you to care for her, or your home is rendered uninhabitable by a flood. There are many reasons why you might need to cut a trip short; trip cancellation insurance makes sure you don’t lose your non-refundable money if it happens.
Emergency Medical and Dental Benefit
What many travelers don’t understand is this; when you leave your home country, your medical coverage stays behind.
For the majority of travelers, medical insurance that you count on everyday will not be applicable while traveling abroad. That means you are without health or accident insurance, traveling in a foreign land, with foreign doctors. This lack of overseas acceptance even includes Medicare, the American system providing care for citizens over 65 years of age.
This emergency medical coverage is here to pay for medical or dental care while away from home, outside the coverage area of your standard health insurance. Anything can happen: a slip and fall, a stomach bug, or even a chipped tooth. Without travel medical insurance, you have no coverage and would have to pay out-of-pocket. In some parts of the world, you will not even receive care until you can prove your ability to pay.
Access America Drive Protection provides $1,000 of emergency medical and dental coverage, which applies to both Comprehensive and Limited.
Emergency Medical Transportation
The other half of the medical emergency problem is transportation, specifically; how do you get to the hospital, and how do you get back home? Medical transportation costs like ambulance rides or helicopter airlifts can have extremely high costs. Without emergency medical transportation coverage, these expenses would be paid out-of-pocket.
What is emergency medical evacuation? If you are injured while on a trip and cannot get to a hospital, you might need emergency medical transport like an ambulance. You might even need an airlift to take you to the nearest medical facility. Sometimes the nearest hospital is not adequately prepared to help, and you need to go even further to get care at a reputable hospital. After you have been cared for, you need to get home somehow, which would result in even more transportation costs. With many injuries, you can’t simply get on a standard flight. You might need a specially designed medical airplane to take you home, with a specially trained medical staff.
Access America Drive Protection provides $15,000 of emergency medical transportation coverage.
Travel Accident Coverage
This coverage provides a cash payment if you are in an accident during your trip that results in death, loss of limb(s), or sight. This benefits pays if a covered accident occurs during the effective dates of the policy, and the loss occurs within 365 days of the accident. The Drive Protection policy provides $10,000 of travel accident coverage.
Lost, Stolen, or Damaged Baggage
This insurance provides coverage for your baggage and personal property in the event of loss, theft, or damage. Occasionally, problems do occur as the airlines process thousands of bags a day, and your bags can be lost, damaged, or maybe even stolen. The airlines have some responsibility for your bags, but their coverage has limits. Perhaps you have a nice set of luggage, or the contents within the bag have a high value. Many travelers want extra coverage in case they have a problem collecting from the airline, or the airline does not provide enough coverage. Many travel insurers will provide baggage coverage in their package policies as a way to supplement airline coverage, and make sure travelers have enough coverage.
Another important part of the baggage coverage is baggage delay, which provides for the purchase of essential items while you wait for your baggage. Toiletries, personal items, or a bathing suit for that first swim; baggage delay insurance allows for necessary items while you wait for your belongings.
Access America Drive Protection provides for $250 in lost, stolen, or damaged baggage coverage.
Travel / Trip Delay Coverage
In the event of a trip delay, you might need to spend money on additional needs such as extra nights in a hotel and meals. If your trip is delayed due to a covered reason such as a carrier caused delay (including bad weather), lost or stolen passport, or civil disorder (see above in cancellation and interruption sections), Access America will reimburse you for expenses like accommodations and meals. This coverage limit is $500.
Vehicle Return Benefit
The provides coverage for the cost of returning your car back to your place of residence if you can’t drive back because you are sick or injured. This is coverage for an incidental expense; if you need to cut your trip short for a covered injury or illness, you also need to get your car back home. This coverage provides for $500 of coverage.
Trip Inconvenience Benefit
This coverage provides a one time payment to help cover auto insurance deductibles in the event of an accident. Since you are driving your own car, this policy does not provide collision coverage like Access America offers on rental cars. Your car is covered by your own insurance, but in the event of an accident, this portion of the policy will pay $500 towards your auto insurance deductible.
Roadside Assistance
This provides arrangements for an emergency service provider to help you if you run out of gas, get a flat tire, need your battery jump-started, get locked out of your car or need to be winched/towed from the side of the road. Coverage for this is $100.
24-Hour Hotline Assistance
This is a great benefit provided with Access America Drive Protection, and it can provide great peace-of-mind. Available with both the Comprehensive plan and Limited, if you need help while traveling, Access America has a 24-hour hotline to help you with all types of problems anywhere in the country; from reporting stolen luggage to getting emergency medical care. This phone center can also help you replace stolen/lost personal documents, refer you to legal help, get you cash in case of emergency, and guarantee payment to hospitals in need of financial proof of your ability to pay. The hotline center is staffed 24 hours a day with professional who can guide the way for you.
Concierge Service
Traveling can be stressful, so Access America has done their best to make the planning of your trip go as smoothly as possible. For the Drive Protection plan, they have included their concierge service, which provides you with information about your destination before you travel and can help you select restaurants, reserve golf tee times, or even secure tickets to local events.
Online Access to Policy Information
Access America has designed a website where policyholders can access important information after purchase. If you need to review your policy, the conditions, make modifications, or even cancel it, you can log in to your account and make the changes. Another great feature of the Access America website is the ability to submit claims online and even track claim progress.
List of Covered Reasons for Trip Interruption
The Access America Drive Protection plan is offered with trip interruption coverage. Drive Protection includes a long list of covered reasons for interrupted trips, which makes the coverage that much better. As you can see from the list below, they are situations that could happen to anyone, and if they do and you need to cancel a trip it helps to have the right coverage.
Attending immediate family members birth- Attending an immediate family member’s childbirth as long as the pregnancy occurs after the effective date of coverage and can be verified by medical records (only applies to trip cancellation).
Car Jacking- You or a traveling companion are carjacked
Covered Travel Delay – loss of 50%- You miss more than half of the total length of your trip because your travel is delayed.
Death of Family Member
Death of Insured
Death of Traveling Companion
Destination uninhabitable- Your destination is uninhabitable because of a natural disaster, fire, flood, burglary, or vandalism.
Employer Termination- You or a traveling companion, with the same employer for at least 3 continuous years are terminated or laid off, through no fault of your own, after your insurance effective date.
Felonious Assault- You or your traveling companion are the victim of a felonious assault within 10 days prior to your departure date.
Financial Default- Your tour operator, airline, or cruise line ceases operation due to bankruptcy.
Foreign and Domestic Terrorism- A terrorist event happens at your US destination within 30 days of the day you’re scheduled to arrive or a terrorist event happens at your foreign destination within 30 days of the day you’re scheduled to arrive.
Hijacking- You or traveling companion are hijacked
Home uninhabitable- Your primary residence is uninhabitable due to natural disaster, fire, flood, burglary, or vandalism.
Illness of Family Member
Illness of Insured
Illness of Traveling Companion
Injury of Family Member
Injury of Insured
Injury of Traveling Companion
Involved in a traffic accident- You or a traveling companion are directly involved in a traffic accident on the way to your point of departure.
Jury/Subpoena- You are summoned by a court order or a subpoena to serve on a jury or appear in court.
Military Obligations- You or a traveling companion serving in the U.S. Armed Forces are reassigned, or have your personal leave revoked, except because of war, the War Powers Act, base or unit mobilization, unit reassignment, or disciplinary action.
Quarantine- You or a traveling companion are quarantined.
Theft of Your Vehicle
Special Notes
Satisfaction Guarantee- Access America will provide you with a full refund of premium if you cancel your insurance with 10 days of purchase and have not filed a claim or departed for your trip. Also known as the “10-Day Free Look” clause, this allows travelers to buy their plan, take some time to read it through and understand the details, and then return it for a full refund if they so choose.
Effective Date- Any insurance policy needs to define, very specifically, when the policy becomes effective and when it expires. With Access America, insurance is effective at 12:01am on the date the scheduled trip begins. Trip cancellation coverage, if purchased, begins the day after your web order is received and approved. This illustrates the importance of buying your trip cancellation policy as close to the time of initial deposit as possible. If you’re booking a trip and make an initial deposit, go ahead and buy your trip cancellation policy at the same time. This give you the most amount of coverage time.
Termination Date- Coverage ends at midnight on the date of return selected, or upon return to the city of residence or when the trip is canceled, whichever is earliest. If your return is delayed for any covered reason, your coverage is extended to the date when you are able to return to your city of residence.
Benefits are per person, and all insureds must purchase the same plan- Each person traveling needs to be listed on the policy.
Maximum Coverage- The maximum coverage available for trip cancellation is $30,000, and is $45,000 for trip interruption.
For trips over 30 days, an additional daily rate of $3 applies, regardless of age. The reasoning here is that the longer you are traveling, the higher likelihood of a claim.
Where to buy this policy:
1. Buy direct from the company- Get a quote and purchase this plan directly from the Access America website here
2. Compare this plan with other plans- The best way to buy travel insurance is to use a comparison website (similar to using Expedia or Travelocity for airline tickets). There are several, but we recommend a comparison site called Squaremouth.com to get instant quotes and purchase online. Squaremouth.com only works with reputable companies, and you can get instant quotes and purchase instantly online with a credit card.
