Many travel insurance providers offer group plans, which are designed specifically for groups (usually of 10 or more) traveling together. Groups can be comprised of family members, co-workers, fraternity brothers, and just about any other group of people.

The key to group coverage is that everyone in the group must participate in the plan in order to qualify for the coverage. Otherwise, group travel insurance is just like travel insurance for individuals, including the free look period to review the policy, the exclusions and conditions, and the process for making a claim. If one person in the group has to cancel their trip for a covered reason, the remaining travelers can continue with their travel plans.

The following is a list of plans that are specifically geared to group travelers:

• Group Go! from CSA – a package plan
• Worldwide Group Protector from Travel Insurance Services – a travel medical plan for groups of 3 to 100
• Protect-a-Group from TravelSafe is also a package plan for groups of 10 or more.

If you’re interested in purchasing a group travel plan, be sure to review the group travel information page, which outlines the risks of group travel and the coverage you’ll need as a group traveler.

Tourists often rush to cancel trips during a flood even if the specific region they planned to travel to isn’t affected at all. While the immediate effect of a flood is disastrous enough to local business, that’s not the end of the story. Because it’s common for natural disasters to have heavy media coverage, tourism is often affected for weeks, months, even years after a particular event. The current flooding in Bangkok is sure to be the same.

The scenes presented on televisions around the globe after a series of disastrous floods hit Queensland and Brisbane have ensured that Australian tourism still hasn’t recovered. The local economic impact is high and many travel suppliers believe it will take another year before full recovery is achieved.

In some cases, however, travel to flood-affected areas can be cost-effective. After Japan’s recent earthquake and the subsequent tsunami and nuclear crisis, tourism dropped to such low levels that a national campaign was begun and Japan is now considering an innovative approach to boost tourism: 10,000 free airfares to visit the country. The decision hasn’t been made about awarding those flight yet.

Travelers across America have been hit with airport service cuts, which affect small-scale airports far more than the larger airports. In the past few years, local airline service and regional airport locations have faced funding reductions and as the airlines have become more and more focused on costs, regional service is being cut due to weak passenger demand when compared to the demand at airports of greater size.

Do travelers using these regional airports need more travel insurance or can they do with less?

Because of the increased potential for flight cancellations and trip delays out of a regional airport, it’s recommended that travelers using these airports have more travel insurance.

The need for trip cancellation and trip delay coverage increases for trips that begin with long drives to the airport, for example:

• A pre-paid, non refundable airport hotel accommodation included in the overall cost of the insured trip for the night prior to flight departure may be covered under trip cancellation coverage (depending on the plan) if the insured must cancel the trip for a covered reason.
• Trip delays due to canceled flights or severe weather can mean unexpected overnight hotel and meal expenses and the hotel may not even be close to the airport!
• A traffic accident on the way to your departure may mean a trip cancellation, which could result in reimbursement for your pre-paid non refundable trip costs depending on the plan.
• A pre-paid, non refundable airport transfer service included in the overall cost of the insured trip may be protected under trip cancellation coverage (depending on the plan) if the insured must cancel the trip for a covered reason.

Unfortunately, no. Travel insurance companies don’t cover anything that is stolen from the car or destroyed in a collision –  just the car itself.

Specifically, most travel insurance policies read like the following with regards to car rental coverage:

The insurer will pay the lesser of:

(a) the cost of repairs and rental charges imposed by
the rental company while the car is being
repaired; or
(b) the Actual Cash Value of the car

Up to the maximum limit shown on the insurance policy’s schedule subject to the policy’s deductible.

The exclusions in a travel insurance policy typically list personal possessions as not being covered with the (often optional) rental car coverage.

If your rental car is broken into in a ‘smash and dash’, you’ll be responsible for the loss of anything stored inside it. This is true as well for anything destroyed in a collision. Read the full details on car rental collision coverage and who offers this with their travel insurance plans.

If you’ve flown in the last decade or so, you’re familiar with the TSA rules for liquids, but some liquids are important and cannot be neatly fit into these categories. They include:

• liquid nutrition like juice, formula or breast milk for really small passengers or those with medical conditions
• life-supporting liquids such as blood products, transplant organs, and bone marrow
• items used to augment the body such as prosthetic breasts, shells containing gels, and saline solutions
• frozen or gel liquids used to cool said medical items used by persons with medical conditions

A recent surge of airline strikes and labor strikes has many travelers confused and worried about their travel plans. Thousands of travelers face being stranded or abandoned by their carriers due to work stoppages of all kinds.

So, how does travel insurance help?

Some travel insurance plans provide 100% reimbursement of your pre-paid non refundable travel costs if you are prevented from taking your trip due to an unannounced strike.

Specifically, strike coverage is listed as a covered reason under trip cancellation coverage and trip interruption coverage.

The key is that the strike must be unannounced at the time of the travel insurance purchase; otherwise the strike falls into the category of ‘known’ events and is then not covered.

If you suspect a strike may affect your travel plans and you want the option to cancel for a refund if that occurs, be sure to purchase a travel insurance plan that includes labor strikes as a covered reason. Carefully review the travel insurance documents that are sent to you and call the assistance services line (within the free look period) if you’re not sure you have the right coverage.

Travel insurance providers, just like the providers of all types of insurance (home, auto, life, etc.), want to limit their risk. In the case of travel insurance plans, they list alcohol as a general exclusion. The intention of this exclusion is to ensure that the travel insurance company won’t have to be responsible for losses that occur as a result of intoxication.

This makes sense when you think about it. Automobile insurance companies limit their risk for losses due to reckless driving by increasing the premiums, or even dropping coverage, for drivers with high numbers of moving traffic violations and speeding tickets.

Because the intake of alcohol can blur a person’s ability to make appropriate decisions, the travel insurance provider shouldn’t have to be responsible for reckless behavior. It’s important to remember that all travel insurance providers require documentation for a claim to be processed.

• If you are making a claim on the medical coverage portion of your travel insurance coverage, for example,  and the presence of alcohol is noted in the medical documentation, your claim could be denied.
• If you’re making a claim on the car rental coverage portion of your travel insurance and a police report reveals a positive breathalyzer result, your claim could be denied.

How much can a traveler drink while on vacation? That’s a judgement call. Most travel insurance providers will look at the level of intoxication noted in the documentation provided to support the claim and make their decision based on the legal limits of the jurisdiction.

A recent report regarding a traveler from south Florida highlights the need for evacuation coverage. Zena Friedman and her sister were vacationing in Bali, a trip they saved for for years, when she was run over by a taxi. With major injuries and in need of urgent medical care, doctors indicated she would have to be transported to Malaysia.

Unfortunately, the sisters did not have travel insurance and the cost of transport alone could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. So friends started a Facebook campaign (https://www.facebook.com/helpzenaheal) to collect donations to cover her medical evacuation expenses. Ms. Friedman ultimately underwent surgery in Malaysia before returning to Miami last week on a flight with paramedics who donated their time.

While we’re ecstatic that Ms. Friedman is getting the care she needs and we wish her well on her recovery, her experience is a traveler’s cautionary tale for at least one reason: her treatment would likely have been more timely if she had carried travel insurance.

Emergency evacuation coverage provides for medically necessary evacuations to a medical facility when the insured is injured or so ill as to be unable to travel by commercial means. This coverage also provides for medically equipped flights to return home – even the repatriation of mortal remains should you not survive.

Out of curiosity, we decided to get a travel insurance quote to see what the approximate cost might have been for these sisters.

We used the following details as an example:

• Two travelers, ages 61 & 63
• Travel dates 11/4 – 11/18/2011
• Florida residents
• Destination Indonesia
• No trip cancellation coverage