Travelers may find themselves worrying over this situation: someone in their family dies and suddenly they have to postpone a trip and change their flight plans. So they worry that their insurance coverage will not cover the flight change they need because of a death in the family.

Don’t worry because this is exactly the kind of thing travel insurance is meant to cover. The short answer is: Yes, travel insurance will cover a flight change because of a death in the family. In fact, many companies not only cover flight changes, they cover flight cancellation. If your family member dies and you suddenly have to postpone or cancel a flight entirely, the insurance company pays the costs and fees. So, if you just change the flight, they cover or reimburse you for the fees of the flight change. In the event that you actually cancel the flight, most policies will also reimburse you for the cost of the tickets since most airlines refuse to refund plane tickets.

This applies to all kinds of insurance. It is most commonly applied to single trip travel insurance because these trips are more often interrupted due to family emergencies. These policies are only meant to cover a single, short trip so it’s a very good idea to get travel insurance in case a death in the family does occur. This way, you don’t have to pay for flight changes or worse, absorb the cost of the entire plane ticket.

For annual travel insurance, you may not actually need it. Annual travel insurance is meant to cover multiple trips taken over a year. Since this kind of travel insurance is most commonly used for business trips, the company will have arranged for some kind of insurance policy when it comes to emergency plan changes. Most annual travel insurance plans do cover flight changes which result from a family death.

Long stay travel insurance usually includes clauses that cover emergency flight change. Long stay travel insurance is actually intended for people who travel extensively or who plan to take a long holiday or vacation, anywhere from 3 to 18 months. These policies actually are quite flexible when it comes to return dates so there may not be an issue at all with flight change or ticket cancellation fees.

The bottom line is, the death of a family member and the sudden change or cancellation of plans is exactly the kind of thing travel insurance is intended for.

Many travelers feel that travel insurance for Australia trips is a simple decision

If you choose to travel all the way to Australia, chances are you will want to stay for a minimum of two weeks, preferably longer, in order to make your plane flight worthwhile.  And, of course, a lot may happen in two weeks—most of it good. However, travel insurance can come to your aid should you experience any trouble (for example, dehydration in the outback or getting a neck cramp from gazing up at the Sydney Opera House).

In addition to the usual coverage for lost or stolen luggage, and in addition to obtaining good medical travel insurance, there are some other factors to be aware of. For instance, many people travel to Australia specifically to dive at the Great Barrier Reef.

In addition to the normal hazards of scuba diving, the Great Barrier Reef is also the site of many of the world’s shark attacks.  Although the chances of a shark attack or other serious injury are still minimal, it’s good to consider purchasing special travel insurance for Australia treks that covers risky activities, if available.

In Australia, drivers drive on the left side of the road as opposed to the right, so getting rental car coverage is important. In some parts of Australia, there is no speed limit, and roads can be treacherous in more isolated areas due to poor grading and graveled shoulders. Furthermore, the abundance of wildlife in Australia occasionally causes problems for drivers as well.

Should you encounter medical problems outside of Australia’s major cities, you may be very far away from healthcare personnel.  Travel insurance can help you get to the appropriate medical care without additional strain on your credit card.

Photo Credit: brentbat

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As with most travel insurance plans, you can choose comprehensive benefits to cover everything from medical emergencies to lost baggage and concierge services. Or, you can stick with the basics and just obtain emergency medical and evacuation, depending on your needs.


Senior travel insurance coverage that you need to consider
Of course, every plan is different, but most travel insurance plans provide a basic level of coverage including the following benefits:

• Senior travel insurance should include emergency medical, including hospital room and board, and local ambulance services
• Emergency medical reunion to bring a family member to your bedside if you are hospitalized
• Acts of terrorism that occur in destinations on the traveler’s itinerary
• Trip cancellation, interruption, and delays that can occur for a variety of reasons
• Emergency medical evacuations and repatriation
• Return of minor grandchildren traveling without their parents with the insured
• Loss of baggage and personal effects
• AD&D
• Coverage for loss or damage to rental cars
• Pre-existing medical conditions*

Senior Travel Insurance Coverage Matrix

The following table lists the providers who offer travel insurance plans to seniors. Most plans that are designed for seniors offer the same travel protection as the company’s plans for younger travelers, but in some cases with slightly reduced maximums or higher deductibles.

Millions of travelers will attend the summer games in Beijing, China
Later this summer, millions of travelers from around the world will descend on the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China with hopes of seeing Gold medalists and exploring a fascinating new country. This can be a great adventure for travelers young and old, but there are a few things travelers need to be aware of before they go.

Olympic-bound travelers must consider their health and medical safety
Anytime you travel, your health and safety are a concern. Many travelers like to try new things; whether it’s new exotic foods, unusual activities, unfamiliar sights, and various other “foreign-land” adventures. If you are heading to Beijing to see the 2008 Olympics, you will absolutely experience a variety a “new things”. Some will be harmless, but some will increase your risk of getting sick, injured, or ill. New foods, unfamiliar surroundings, or a day-trip adventure could result in any sort of accident.

Health insurance from home won’t cover medical expenses while abroad
When traveling in your home country, a slight mishap won’t cause too much trouble as long as you have health insurance. Your insurance from your home travels with you as long as you are in your home country.

Travelers are surprised, however, to learn that the same coverage that protects them at home will not always travel with them overseas. In fact, most health insurance from the US does not provide coverage once you leave the US, including Medicare. That means that when you leave your home country, you are left with no medical coverage to protect you in case of accidents, illnesses, or sicknesses. An unexpected visit to a foreign hospital can be a scary (and expensive) experience.

Transportation to get an injured traveler home can cost $50,000 or more
The costs of having an accident or getting sick while overseas doesn’t end with the emergency medical care costs. The other downside of needing medical care while abroad is the problem of getting back home. In many cases, an injured or sick passenger cannot simply fly on a commercial airline. They might need a specially equipped medical flight, or even an emergency medical evacuation.

Travelers going to the Olympics in China need travel insurance
The answer is to purchase travel insurance for your Olympic trip to China. A travel medical insurance plan is a temporary policy that covers you for the length of your trip. A good travel medical policy will provide:

• assistance in finding a hospital
• transportation if needed
• translation assistance
• payment for covered expenses

Important! Most travel medical plans even provide coverage that pays for emergency medical evacuation and transportation costs, which can be staggering. Make sure the one you choose provides this!

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Why you should never buy travel insurance from an airline, cruise line, or tour operator

When you decide to purchase insurance for your trip, you are entering into a contract with an insurance company. You are promising to pay a certain amount of premium, and they are promising to pay you under certain circumstances (a claim).

In the case of travel insurance, you should always purchase from a third party. Even though your cruise line, airline, or tour operator offers you insurance, it is not the same as purchasing it independently.

Insurance purchased from a travel supplier may not cover financial default (bankruptcy)

There has been a string of airline bankruptcies recently, causing many travelers to shop for travel insurance. For travelers who purchased a plan through their travel supplier, however, there might not be coverage for this situation. Many insurance plans offered by travel suppliers do not cover bankruptcy and financial default.

Always purchase travel insurance from a third party source

It is always wise to purchase travel insurance from a third party source who will provide coverage in the event of bankruptcy, when airlines or other travel suppliers stop service. Don’t be left without coverage when you need it.

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With the rapid increase of airline bankruptcies and cancelled flights, many travelers are relying on travel insurance to protect their investment. Travel insurance provides many benefits, one of which is coverage for the bankruptcy or financial default of a travel provider; including airlines, cruise line, or tour operators.

This travel insurance coverage will provide reimbursement for cancelled travel plans when a travel supplier declares bankruptcy.

Not all travel insurance policies provide this coverage, it depends on the plan. Some provide great coverage for this, some have several conditions that must be met, and other do not provide coverage at all.

Here are 4 essential steps to buying financial default coverage

1. Check your policy to make sure financial default coverage is provided
There are many different travel insurance companies, and each company has several products. Financial default (or bankruptcy) is not covered by all travel insurance policies. Read the policy brochure carefully, or even better the actual policy certificate. Look for a section regarding coverage for bankruptcy or financial default.

The best way to find the policies with the best coverage for financial default is to use a comparison engine. At the end of this article, you will find a table outlining the financial default coverage for all major travel insurance companies and their products.

2. Check the list of “Covered Suppliers” to make sure your airline or tour operator is covered.
Some travel suppliers might not be covered for financial default reasons. Travel insurance companies will define the specific travel suppliers that they will cover for financial default. Look for a “Covered Supplier List” when purchasing travel insurance, and check it to make sure your airline, cruise line, or tour operator is listed.

The travel insurance company must define the specific companies due to the shear number of different providers, and the questionable stability of some of them. It isn’t hard to start a “tour company”, and many of them go out of business.

3. Buy travel insurance as soon as possible
Regardless of the financial default coverage, it is always recommended that you purchase your travel insurance policy as soon as possible to take advantage of all the coverage. This means buying it when you make you first trip payment. There are many reasons to purchase your travel insurance plan as early as possible, and it is specifically important with financial default and bankruptcy coverage.

Most companies require that you purchase the policy within a certain time period; often within 10-15 days of your first trip payment, or within 24 hours of you last trip payment. Check the details of your policy, or consult the table at the end of this article.

The travel insurance company does this to make sure travelers don’t buy coverage after they know about the bankruptcy.

4. Be aware of the “waiting period” for financial default coverage in many travel insurance plans.
Another line of fine print refers to the “waiting period”. This is a period of time after the purchase of your policy when a financial default would not be covered. For example: if a company has a 10 day waiting period, but the travel provider declares bankruptcy 6 days after the effective date of the policy, you would not be covered.

Again, this is done to prevent uninsured travelers from buying coverage after the fact. Oftentimes, the imminent bankruptcy of a company is known to the general public. Without this waiting period, you might hear that your provider is about to declare bankruptcy, and you could buy the insurance hoping to be covered. The purpose of trip cancellation insurance is to cover sudden, accidental, and unknown events. This is why insurance should be purchased as soon as possible, so you can be covered for the longest period of time.

Financial Default Coverage Matrix

Here is a listing of most major travel insurance companies and their individual plans, as well as the financial default coverage provided. Note: It is also important to double check your policy when purchasing; simply use this table as a starting point. You can compare quotes from all of these companies here.

That means many travelers were left stranded, scrambling to find a flight home.

In a gesture of good travel karma, Travel Guard has announced that it will provide their emergency travel assistance services to all travelers affected by Aloha Airlines’ announcement that it has ceased operations.

Travel Guard has offered to help stranded travelers rebook flights on other air carriers, arrange for extended hotel stays for those currently stranded at their destinations, and even help with other emergency travel needs.

Travelers wishing to take advantage of these complimentary emergency travel assistance services can call AIG Travel Guard’s 24-hour emergency hotline at 1-888-637-1739, or visit www.TravelGuard.com

There is no easy answer to this question. It is hard to single out 1 travel insurance company as having the best deals. Each company, and more importantly, each policy, has different coverage and levels of coverage. Therefore, they have different prices.

Cheap is not always the best way to go

The important thing its to get the coverage you need. It will do you no good to buy the cheapest trip insurance plan, but not have coverage for that lost suitcase or missed flight.

Decide what coverage is most important to you, and how much. Every plan varies. If you are going abroad, and want to make sure you have medical coverage, you will want to pay special attention to the travel medical policies. If you are concerned with a last minute cancellation due to the illness of a sick family member, you will focus on trip cancellation insurance, or “cancel for any reason” coverage.

Here are the steps to finding the best deals for travel insurance:

1. Decide what coverage is most important to you and your trip
2. Compare travel insurance using a comparison site, such as Squaremouth.com
3. Find the policies with the coverage you are comfortable with, then look for a price that works for you

It’s that simple.

To give you an idea of how the different the premiums can be, here is a comparison chart of the rates from various companies and plans. This is a quote for a 30 day trip, trip cost of $10,000, medical coverage of $10,000, for 2 32 year-old travelers:

As you can see, there is a big gap between the cheapest and the most expensive plan. You can bet there is more coverage for the Deluxe plan from Access America, and less coverage in the Essential plan.

As an industry that is still growing, especially in the United States, there are more and more travel insurance companies emerging all the time. As of right now, there are roughly 2 dozen companies that market, administer, and issue trip and travel insurance coverage. They range from big-corporation spin-offs like AIU’s Travel Guard, to independent upstarts that have entered the market in the past 15-20 years, like CSA Travel Protection and Seven Corners.

Even though are a several companies to choose with many different policies, there are ways to help you figure out the best one for your trip. At the end of this article, we’ll provide you with some links to comparison sites that let you compare rates from all major companies at the same time.

What exactly do the insurance companies do?

The job of the individual travel insurance companies is simple: they design the product (the policy), they market and sell it, then administer and issue the policy. But it doesn’t end right there. They are also there for a very important reason; possibly the most important when it comes to insurance: support.

Imagine you are traveling in Laos on a 3 week honeymoon. While embarking on a cycling day-trip through the countryside, your new wife takes a tumble and breaks her wrist. What now? You are in the middle of a foreign land, where you do not speak the language, don’t know anyone, let alone the best hospital to take her to. Not to mention how you get her there. This is where good support plays a part.

The insurance companies have support centers with trained insurance professionals that can answer your question; before and after the purchase. They will handle claims and claim questions as well. They provide assistance in foreign countries, help you find a hospital, and even to get through language barriers. They can arrange special transportation if the nearest hospital is not adequate.

The ability of a travel insurance company to provide great support is a very important factor in making your buying decision.

How do I know these travel insurance companies are reliable?

I have written another post on this specific topic; how can you know that you are buying travel insurance from a reputable company? There are a few trustworthy organizations that give credibility to the different trip insurance companies; here is a brief review of them.

The official rating company in the insurance industry is A.M.Best. A.M.Best is a full-service credit rating organization dedicated to serving the financial services industries, including the banking and insurance sectors. They have ratings for every reputable and trustworthy insurance company; on a letter scale (A+, B-, etc.) This a good place to check when you are not sure about a certain company.

The US Travel Insurance Association (UStiA) is a group whose mission is to, “…foster ethical and professional standards of industry conduct, cultivate effective state and federal government relations, inform and assist members, and educate consumers.” Representatives from various travel insurance related companies act as Officers, and travel insurance companies and related companies can pay a membership fee and be listed as members. UStiA does not rate companies, but their membership, and therefore inclusion in the group, helps credibility.

How can I compare rates from the different insurers?

There is actually a very simple way to compare different plans from the different travel insurance companies. In the “old” days (10+ years ago), booking airfare was a very different process than it is today? People typically used a travel agency, or spent hours on the phone with customer service representatives from United Airlines, Northwest Airlines, TWA, and others. You would writing down the different times, connections, and fares. Then you would compare all the prices; and figure out when you wanted to leave, when to return, etc. Sound familiar?

Then along came Expedia, Travelocity, and the other online travel sites. They took the role of travel agent, and made it easy for us to look at all the available airfares from several airlines, and compare prices side-by-side. Much easier, right?

The same thing exists for the travel insurance companies. Instead of using an agency, or calling the individual companies, you can go to comparison websites and see all the different plans, compare the coverage, and even compare quotes (NOTE: in the travel insurance industry, you are able to get instant, accurate quotes for your travel insurance premium. You don’t need to submit your information and wait for an email or call; you can get a quote for travel insurance in less than a minute.)

The other nice thing is that you can instantly purchase and bind coverage, right online. Using a credit card, travelers can get a quote and purchase their policy instantly. The companies generally mail the policy out to you, but you will also receive an email with all the important policy information. You can print this out and get right on the plane.

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