The Christmas holiday season is full of gatherings, traditions, once-a-year treats, and more. Unfortunately, it’s also a season for visits to the emergency room. According to one hospital report, more than 12,000 people are treated in hospital emergency rooms each year due to falls, cuts, shocks, and burns from holiday decorations and holiday decorating activities.

In a 2004 American Health Association report, cardiac mortality rises around Christmas and New Year’s to rates higher than any other time of the year. According to the report, the spike in daily mortality has multiple explanations, one of which may include the patient waiting to seek treatment because of holiday.

See this list of health tips aimed at keeping you safe during the holiday season:

1. Keep fires in the fireplace. Secure lighters away from children and completely extinguish burning candles in unoccupied rooms.
2. Clear snow and ice from pathways. It’s not only your aging Aunt Margaret and Uncle Robert you have to worry about, eager children rushing over icy walks can flip and hurt themselves too.
3. Frostbite and hypothermia are not a joke. As the temperatures drop and people travel to unfamiliar areas, they may be unprepared for the severe cold, but frostbite and hypothermia can land someone on the hospital very quickly.
4. Watch out for distracted drivers. It’s a crazy time with too much alcohol, noisy distractions, and far too many errands. Focus carefully when you’re driving and watch out for other who may be more distracted.

If you’re traveling this holiday season, take a minute to verify the range of your health insurance coverage and have the medical and dental protection you need on your trip. That way, if you do have to visit the emergency room, you won’t have a big unexpected bill as a result.

America is a very mobile society – we move ourselves, our families, and our stuff around the country for jobs all the time. In our current economic recession, you may be traveling to interview for a job in another state may wonder if they need travel insurance to cover their job interview trips.

We wondered too.

So, we did a little research into what could go wrong on a job interview trip to help travelers decide whether travel insurance is useful or not.

Do I need Travel Health Insurance on a job interview trip?

If you are coming to the U.S. for an interview and are not a citizen, this is non negotiable. You’ll need travel health protection. If you are traveling inside the U.S. and currently have a health insurance policy, you may feel comfortable with leaving medical coverage out of your trip insurance plan. Then again, if you’re interviewing for a job in a mountain town where you plan to squeeze in a little skiing on your visit, you may want to reconsider. Remember that when you are traveling outside your network, you pay out-of-network costs versus the cheaper in-network costs. If you get injured or become ill on your trip, a little travel health coverage might be a good idea.

See our post on insuring a ski trip for additional information.

Do I need Cancellation or Trip Interruption protection on a job interview trip?

That depends on whether you are forking over the cash for the airline tickets, hotel, and more or not. If they’re picking up the tab, then the worst that can happen is that you have some extra time to spend in a new area. If you are anxious to get back home, call the airline to see if you can go stand-by on an earlier flight.

If you are paying for the trip, then cancellation and interruption protection depends on your circumstances. If your kid gets very ill while you are on the trip and you want to go home early, trip interruption protection will help you get home earlier. If the potential employer cancels your interview before you leave, you’ll need ‘cancel for any reason’ protection added to your policy to be reimbursed for your non refundable costs because travel insurance doesn’t include a covered reason for job interview cancellations.

Do I need Travel Delay coverage on a job interview trip?

This one is tough because you are traveling to be there at a particular appointment time and you want to be prompt of course. Travel insurance isn’t going to reimburse you for missing your interview time slot, but at the same time, if you are stuck in Chicago on your way to California and a snow storm locks down all flights, you are now looking at footing the bill for hotel, meals, and more until the airport opens up. Check your flights to see where you could get stuck and consider travel delay coverage if you might be.

Do I need Baggage coverage on a job interview trip?

Again, this depends on whether you will be carrying much on your trip. Remember that travel insurance baggage protection protects your luggage and personal effects even outside the airport and bags can be stolen just about anywhere. (from hotel desks, from taxis, etc.). Of course, all baggage protection comes with limits: per-item limits, and maximum limits. Our best advice is to pack light, don’t put anything you need for your interview into your checked luggage, and keep your valuable stuff on your person.

Do I need Car Rental Collision coverage on a job interview trip?

In most cases, travelers get the same level of car rental protection from their credit cards as they do from a travel insurance plan. In addition, some car owners have automobile insurance that protects their rental cars as well, but the terms and conditions are the key. Car rental collision coverage with a travel insurance plan or a credit card travel protection plan does not protect the driver from personal liability. The coverage you pick up at the rental car counter, however, does not protect the driver from “loss of use” charges imposed when the vehicle is damaged and in the shop. No rental coverage protects you from loss or theft of personal items inside the vehicle.

If you are paying for the car you are renting on your job interview trip, check with your credit card to see what protection is available there first (because it’s an extra cost if you buy it with your travel insurance).

If you’re a person who regularly takes vitamins, you may be  wondering whether travel insurance will cover the loss or theft of those vitamins. We wondered too, so we did a little digging around and made a couple of calls to find out.

First, the number one thing a vitamin-taking-traveler can do to protect their vitamins is to pack them in your carry-on instead of your checked luggage. If you have them with you, they are far less likely to be stolen.

According to the travel insurance providers we called, vitamins are part of your personal effects, and if those are stolen and you have adequate baggage coverage, you can receive reimbursement for them along with all of the other stuff stolen from you (up to your policy limit).  See the complete information on baggage coverage, including policy limits, and remember that travel insurance protects your bags even after you collect them from the baggage carousel.

That being said, however, it’s important for you to help make a travel insurance claim easier by implementing these steps:

1. Take a photo of the vitamins before you pack them. (This is also true of the other items in your luggage as well – photographing the contents of your luggage makes it far easier on everyone when you have to make a claim.)
2. Save a copy of the photographed contents, either by leaving one with someone you trust back home, or storing it digitally (think e-mail, or your mobile device) just in case the copy is also stolen from you or lost.
3. Keep your receipts if you replace anything. If you have to replace your vitamins by visiting a local drugstore, keep your receipts because you’ll need them when you make a claim on your baggage coverage.

We also recommend you keep the vitamins in their original containers because it might mean less scrutiny at security, but of course many people travel with their vitamins organized into day-by-day plastic bags too. We have no statistics or information on whether it’s a problem for security or not.

A brief search of the TSA.gov website revealed this (rather generic) statement when we plugged ‘vitamins’ into their Can I bring search tool:

An engine explosion on a cruise touring the Baltic sea on May 13, 2011, caused a ship-wide power failure. While tug boats were sent to rescue the MSC Opera, and the cruise company gave the passengers credit vouchers for the amount they paid, we wondered how often the power goes out on cruise ships and what happens when it occurs?

So, we poked around in the Cruise Critic boards and found numerous discussions posted by cruisers about when the power goes out. Some of the more problematic situations cruise passengers encountered were:

• All the lights go out (in one passenger report, the emergency lights did not come on either)
• The air ventilation systems shut off (one passenger claimed her room got uncomfortably warm)
• The elevators were inoperable (causing big problems for one disabled passenger)
• The kitchens were inoperable (resulting in a limited food menu for a family)
• The ship loses it’s time slot to leave the harbor (the delayed departure didn’t cause too much trouble)

Floating adrift in the ocean with no lights, inoperable bathrooms, and little information is bad enough, but if you are on a cruise where this happens, what about the pre-paid scuba trip or Cathedral tour or the chance to swim with dolphins? The cruise operator is only responsible for repaying the payments you made to them, and not everyone else.

In this situation, unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that travel insurance can help you either. We reviewed a number of descriptions of coverage and even called one travel insurance provider to verify, but if your cruise ship’s power goes out and you miss a planned on-shore excursion as a result, you could be out of luck. Our recommendation is to work with travel suppliers that let you cancel your excursion if something happens, or let you reserve it for a small fee and pay the remainder when you arrive. That way, you’ll be protected in case you can’t get there.

Be sure to see our latest cell phone tips for cruise ships too – just in case you have to make that phone call.

Most countries do not recognize U.S. driver’s licenses, but they will accept an International Driving Permit. When you travel overseas, it can be useful to carry an International Driving Permit because, just like in the U.S., it acts as a recognizable form of identification even if you never plan to drive in a foreign country.

What are the requirements for an International Driving Permit?

To qualify for an IDP, you must be at least 18 years of age and have a current U.S. driver’s license.

How do you apply for an International Driving Permit?

Two automobile associations are authorized by the U.S. Department of State to issue IDPs:

• American Automobile Association
• National Auto Club

U.S. citizens can secure an IDP by visiting one of these offices or through the postal service. Start by completing the IDP application and taking or mailing it along with:

1. 2 passport-like photos (2″ x 2″) – sign the back of each photo
2. a permit fee of $15.00 U.S. (as a check or money order, no cash)
3. a photocopy of the front and back of your current U.S. driver’s license

Overseas auto insurance

Car accidents can occur overseas just as they can back home, and if you will be driving in a foreign country, it’s recommended that you purchase adequate car insurance. Travelers using a credit card usually have adequate car rental coverage with their credit card protection, but of course, you’ll need to check with your credit card company and review the card agreement to be sure. You can also purchase car rental collision coverage through your travel insurance company.

It’s important to note that neither travel insurance nor credit card protection cover your personal liability. These plans are designed to protect travelers from the high costs associated with repairing a damaged vehicle, so these plans are not comprehensive coverage like you may have with your own automobile insurance back home.

Three countries: Mexico, Jamaica, and Ireland do not accept car insurance from outside their own country, so you’ll have to purchase car insurance inside those countries for it to be valid.

For additional overseas road safety facts and road travel reports, see the Association for Safe International Road Travel.

There are a large number of websites available to help adopting families, so we’re relying on the U.S. Department of State’s Intercountry Adoption website for this information: in 2010 American families adopted 11,059 children from foreign countries. The State Department has outlined an informative list for adopting parents, including describing the role of the State Department in adoptions, country information, adoption notices and alerts, and more.

Failed Adoption Risk

Unfortunately, failed adoptions are occasionally a reality along the path to adopting a child. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (a 2004 publication), it’s difficult to obtain statistics on failed adoptions for a host of reasons.

By searching through a number of adoption sites, we found the reasons adoptions may fail include:

• The birth mother decides to raise the child instead of giving him or her up for adoption
• The foreign country closes the borders to further adoptions
• Legal red tape delays or completely halts an adoption

All of these reasons are not something an adopting family can predict, and that’s an important factor to consider when you’re considering what kind of travel insurance you need to protect your adoption trip. When an adopting family has invested an amount of money in airline tickets, hotel reservations, etc. to travel to adopt a child, the last thing they need is to lose all that money if the adoption fails.

Single Most Important Coverage for Adopting Parents

For the reasons listed above, the best travel insurance for adopting parents to have is adequate ‘cancel for any reason’. Regular trip cancellation coverage doesn’t list covered reasons that will apply in the case of parents attempting to adopt a child, so calling the travel insurance company to cancel your trip because the adoption went awry will not result in the reimbursement of your trip costs. ‘Cancel for any reason’ coverage, however, will result in 50-100% of your trip costs being returned to you in the event you have to cancel your adoption trip.

Of course, you still need to consider travel medical coverage while on your trip (especially if it’s outside your home country and outside your health insurance network) as well as protections like baggage coverage, travel delay, etc.

We wish all parents hoping to adopt the best adoption trip possible, but just in case, be sure you think through your travel insurance options so you have the financial protection you need.

As the winter storms begin across the country, and skiers head for the slopes, we researched what kind of coverage skiers would most want with their travel insurance plans.

The first step to insuring your ski trip is to be sure that the coverage plan you choose allows skiing as a covered activity. Otherwise, you’ll need to add a hazardous sports waiver to your plan. Most plans allow for regular skiing, but ‘extreme skiing’ requires the purchase of additional sports coverage.

Trip Cancellations and Travel Delays

When you are traveling to ski country, there’s a high likelihood in some areas that a winter storm will affect your arriving on time. After all, all that snow doesn’t just fall in the ski slopes. Cancellations and delays due to weather have to be accompanied by a complete cessation of services for a minimum number of hours. So, if you are flying out of JFK and headed to Denver, if the weather shuts down the airports and causes your carrier to be grounded for that minimum number of hours, then you’ll have a covered reason to cancel your trip or reimbursement for the portion of your trip you lost due to the delay.

Baggage Loss and Delay for Ski Trips

• Baggage Delay – travel insurance plans define a minimum number of hours that checked baggage must be missing before it will begin reimbursing a traveler’s costs. If you are landing in Denver, for example, and have a drive of an hour or two (depending on weather and traffic), waiting around at the airport for your delayed bags isn’t going to work well. Most airlines will ship your bag to your destination, but again, that just means a longer delay. If you are also checking your skis, a better route might be to carry your suitcase with your clothing and personal effects onto the plane and check your skis with the airline.
• Baggage Loss – travel insurance plans define a per-item maximum, which means that the loss or theft of your skis will only be covered up to the per-item amount, and a benefit maximum, which means that everything in your suitcase plus the skis can only be covered up to that maximum. For skiers worried about the loss of their favorite equipment, it might be better to rent skis when you arrive instead (plus, you’ll save those baggage fees).

Medical Care and Evacuation Coverage

Most ski resorts have gotten pretty good about their ability to evacuate an injured skier off the slopes and to the lodge, where he or she can be transported by ambulance. If you’re the type of skier who skis outside the boundaries of the resort slopes, however, you might consider packing an avalanche beacon and a decent amount of medical evacuation coverage.

If you will be traveling outside your health insurance network area, you’ll be paying the higher out-of-network medical costs if you are injured or become ill on your ski trip. See our previous post for last year’s ski season injury statistics and consider having medical coverage with your trip insurance plan. That coverage could mean the difference between coming home with a cast and a big bill or just coming home with a cast.

Don’t forget! If you have a pre-existing medical condition, be sure to get a waiver on that medical coverage.

CEO corner, Jim EvansWhen the number of tourists to Japan plummeted thanks to a tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster, there were hints that the Japanese Tourism Agency would be giving away 10,000 flights to travelers in an effort to pump a little tourist activity into the industry.

That claim has since not been backed up, but whether the rumor is true or not, the effect was still the same – potential travelers are checking the Japan National Tourism Organization’s website and awareness of Japan’s tourism woes went global.

So, does the U.S. need a national tourism branding machine similar to the one in Japan? It seems we’re getting one either way. According to a Budget Travel article, Brand USA is a private D.C.-based company overseen by the Commerce Department and Congress. It’s funded through a combination of private sector money and funds collected through the Department of Homeland Security.

Their presence is on the web at this web address: https://www.discoveramerica.com/.

According to their website, their purpose is:

Brand USA (formerly the Corporation for Travel Promotion) was created for the purpose of encouraging travelers from all over the world to visit the United States of America. The public-private marketing entity was created in 2010 to work in close partnership with the travel industry maximizing the social and economic benefit of travel in communities around the country.

In the CEO corner, Jim Evans explains that the new American brand will be coming soon.