Wherever you go in the world, there is always the risk of an accident, illness, theft or other crime. There are many reasons for women and men to take out travel insurance, but there are also some reasons travel insurance may be more important to a female traveler than a male traveler.

In general, there are two types of travel insurance:

• Full-featured travel insurance package plans that bundle travel medical with trip cancellation, interruption, missed connections, and more.
• Travel medical plans that are medically focused but often include some trip interruption but fewer of the full-featured benefits.

As a woman traveler, or someone who cares about a particular woman traveler, there are a number of things to understand about travel insurance.

Including what travel insurance will provide:

If your camera is stolen

Airline coverage for stolen items is limited, but the risk of theft is not limited to the airline staff. Bags can be stolen from taxi trunks, from your hotel room, even fall overboard off a ferry.

Baggage coverage provides replacement value with maximum limits for any single item – like electronics and cameras. In many cases, you’re better off covering expensive items like cameras with a rider on your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance policy. Then, rely on the baggage coverage with your travel insurance plan to cover your bag, your shoes, your clothes, etc.

If you are injured or get sick

If you are injured or get sick while traveling, the right travel insurance plan will cover your medical treatment, emergency transportation, physician’s expenses, medications, and more. This coverage usually includes some coverage for emergency dental treatment as well.

Some travel insurance plans also include a benefit called ‘return of minor children’ that ensures your dependent children are returned safely home in the event you are hospitalized.

When you travel outside your health insurance network, you’ll wind up paying the higher out-of-network costs. Most health insurance plans do not cover treatment received outside the U.S. borders, so it’s important that you have travel medical insurance (by far the least expensive travel insurance) when you are visiting another country.

If someone else gets sick

If someone else gets sick, either before or during your trip, and you want to cancel your trip to be with that person, travel insurance will reimburse your unused prepaid non-refundable trip costs. That means if your son or daughter, spouse or parent gets sick, you can cancel or end your trip to be with them and still get your money back.

It’s important to note that the person who is sick must be a covered person as defined in the travel insurance description of coverage (unfortunately, best friends and beloved pets don’t count – you’ll need ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage in that case) and their illness must not have been caused by a pre-existing medical condition (unless you also purchased a waiver).

If you die – or someone else dies

If you die on your trip, the right travel insurance plan will ensure that your body is suitably transported back home – saving your family the hassle of navigating complicated foreign repatriation laws. Medical evacuation and repatriation coverage only kicks in when you are traveling outside your home country.

If someone else suddenly dies while you are traveling, and you want to return home, travel insurance provides trip interruption coverage which reimburses up to 150% of your unused trip costs and additional airfare if you have to end your trip.

Again, it’s important to note that the person who dies must be a covered person as defined in the travel insurance plan document.

If there’s a hurricane or other natural disaster

If there’s a hurricane or other natural disaster, a good travel insurance plan with coverage for natural disasters will allow you to cancel your trip and get your pre-paid trip expenses back (up to the policy limit) in the event your primary residence or travel destination is rendered uninhabitable by the disaster.

Travel insurance with natural disaster coverage will also help you with unexpected trip costs due to flight delays that result from the natural disaster.

Hurricanes and other natural disasters are not automatically covered by a travel insurance plan, however. You must read the plan document to understand the coverage for natural disasters and to understand the policy limits. For example, you won’t be able to cancel simply because the pool is ruined and the restaurants are closed – you’ll need ‘cancel for any reason’ in that case.

If you’re in a car crash

If you rent a vehicle on your trip and it’s damaged or stolen, the coverage you have from your own automobile policy may not provide for all the related costs, including ‘loss of use’ charges.

The right travel insurance plan will have car rental collision coverage included to cover the cost of repairs or replacement (up to the policy limit) for a rental car. Depending on your credit card trip protection benefits, however, you may do just as well relying on their benefits. Again, it’s important to consider the risks and read the benefit description to understand your coverage fully before you choose one over the other. Neither your travel insurance nor your credit card benefits will cover liability due to a traffic accident, so you could still be sued.

If you’re in a traffic accident en route to your scheduled departure, many travel insurance plans with trip cancellation coverage will reimburse your pre-paid trip costs if your claim is submitted with proper documentation.

If your flight is delayed

Flight delays come in all shapes and sizes: mechanical failures, flight operation delays, union strikes, weather, and more, but the airlines don’t give you a lot of perks when it comes to delays.

The right travel insurance plan will reimburse you a certain amount each day for basic expenses, including lodging and meals (sometimes even movie rentals for the kids) if your trip is delayed the minimum number of hours and for a covered reason.

If your passport is stolen

If your passport is stolen before your trip, you could lose all your non-refundable trip costs simply because you can’t get a replacement in time. Travel insurance can help you if your passport is stolen before your trip or during your trip.

File an official report that your passport was stolen and a good travel insurance plan with coverage for lost and stolen passports will reimburse your non-refundable trip costs. If your passport is lost or stolen while you’re traveling, the travel insurance assistance services will help you get it replaced and even re-pay the emergency processing fees.

If you’re attacked

If you are the victim of an assault occurring within ten days of your scheduled departure date and you want to cancel your trip, the right  travel insurance plan will fully refund your pre-paid trip costs.

If your travel insurance plan covers assaults prior to departure, it usually covers an assault that occurs during your trip. So, if you are assaulted on a trip and you want to return home immediately, your unused trip expenses will be covered as well as your additional airfare as long as assault is listed as a covered reason for trip cancellation/trip interruption in the plan document.

If you’re pregnant

In general, pregnancy is specifically excluded from all travel insurance coverage, but travelers can cover cancellations due to pregnancy. In addition, medical conditions that are defined as complications of pregnancy are covered as long as the plan has medical coverage that includes those as a covered event. See How Travel Insurance Covers Pregnancy for details.

The key to any insurance policy is reading the fine print and understanding your coverage. You’ll notice we use the term ‘for a covered reason’ a lot in this article. That’s because we know the covered reasons catch many travelers who assume their plan covers ‘everything’ by surprise. Only by reading the plan, and asking questions if necessary, can you be certain of your coverage.

Luckily, travel insurance plan documents aren’t too long or difficult to read and every travel insurance plan comes with a free review period during which you can modify or cancel the plan.

Many university alumni associations sponsor trips for their alumni members – for the purpose of staying in touch after graduation, networking, etc.

Some trips have a special purpose. For example, some alumni travel as a group to volunteer, to learn, to gain a new skill, or to learn a new language.

Of course, many alumni trips are simply about connecting and having fun.

8 Risks Common to Alumni Travel

Any arranged trip (like an alumni trip) comes with the rewards and risks typical of any type of travel, and traveling alumni should research and buy their travel insurance before they go.

The following are the risks specific to many alumni trips:

1. You might have to cancel the trip. If a friend or family member gets sick, or a pet dies, or your house is destroyed by a hurricane, will you lose all your prepaid trip expenses?
2. Your flight could be delayed or cancelled. If you miss your alumni cruise departure due to a cancelled or delayed flight, the airline isn’t going to be sympathetic or helpful.
3. You’re suddenly very concerned about the potential for a terrorist attack on your trip. Can you cancel your trip without losing all the money you’ve already spent?
4. A hurricane destroys the destination where your alumni gathering was to be held. Will you be able to make alternative arrangements and get a refund for the money you will lose?
5. Your wife is severely ill with food poisoning and you have to get her to a local doctor – and fast. Will you be able to find a suitable medical facility nearby? If not, can you get her evacuated to where she can receive treatment? How will you pay for that treatment?
6. Your house is robbed just days before you’re to leave and your passport is stolen. Will you lose your overseas trip costs because you can’t get a replacement passport in time?
7. You get on a flight to Rome for a month of Italian-language practice, but your bags are mysteriously routed to Russia instead. Will you have plenty of cash to replace necessary items until your bags can find you again?
8. You meet your fellow alumni at the door of a tour group in Greece, but the door is closed and locked – gone out of business due to economic conditions. Will you be able to recover the money you spent?

In each of the cases above, the right travel insurance plan would save the traveler time, frustration, and money. Plus, you’ll have an emergency assistance services team on hand to help you recover nonrefundable expenses, find local medical care, arrange for an evacuation, and help you with translations.

Don’t alumni trips include travel insurance?

Some do and some don’t.

While many alumni associations do offer travel insurance with their trip packages, but most of those plans are one-size-fits-all plans that may exclude a particular traveler for a number of reasons, including:

• pre-existing medical condition
• participation in a ‘hazardous’ activity
• cancellation reason that’s not covered

Of course, the traveler won’t know they’re excluded from the coverage unless they read the policy details or find out the hard way (as in, after a claim is filed and it’s too late to do anything about it).

In many cases, the alumni association will suggest a particular travel insurance company with which they have a relationship, but they still place the burden of researching and understanding what coverage is necessary on the traveler. If you’re going to do all that work anyway, you might as well get the best price for your coverage, don’t you agree?

5 Steps to Prepare for your next Alumni Trip

See the following steps to prepare for your next alumni trip:

1. Find out if the alumni trip includes travel insurance. If it does, get a copy of the plan document and read it carefully. Got questions? Contact the insurance provider and ask them. If the coverage won’t work for your needs, you’ll want to know that before you get in a tight spot.
2. Understand the health and safety risks for your trip. For example, you may have to fight malaria on a trip to South Africa, but your primary risk in Egypt could be terrorism. See the U.S. State Department’s country-specific travel safety information for your destination to understand the health and safety risks before you go.
3. Determine how much travel medical and evacuation is enough you need for this trip. The cost of emergency medical care and transportation is determined by a limited set of factors, but with a little information you can determine how much you’ll need to be safe where you’re going.
4. Decide whether you need trip cancellation coverage. Most travelers don’t plan a trip thinking that they’ll have to cancel, but all kinds of disastrous events can force you to change your mind – or worse, to abandon your trip to handle an emergency. See the covered reasons for trip cancellation and trip interruption and determine whether you want 100% reimburses for your prepaid nonrefundable trip costs should you have to cancel your trip.
5. Buy adequate travel insurance. Many tour operators are starting to require their guests to have travel insurance, but most don’t have the skill or knowledge to help a traveler choose the right plan. This is because every traveler and every trip is unique. See our Travel Insurance 101 to better understand how to choose a plan for your trip, then use our tool to compare quotes from many travel insurance companies.

Even if your alumni trip comes with a standard trip insurance plan, the alumni association won’t be the ones to pay for your costs if you get into trouble and your alumni friends shouldn’t have to either.

Every year more baby boomers retire and when asked about their retirement goals, well over half of all retiring seniors say their plans are to travel.

That means over 80 million older adults will be traveling in 2012 and that number will continue to rise as more retire.

Senior travelers have a different set of concerns than younger travelers do. Sure, you may no longer be required to return to work to handle a business meeting or care for a sick child, but there are other risks you can encounter.

As a senior traveler, it’s important to manage those risks for your health, your family, and your financial security.

See the following insurance tips for traveling seniors before you make your next travel plans, and be sure to share these tips with other senior travelers you know!

1. Check your Medicare supplement plan for travel benefits

Some time ago, the Medicare Supplement plan providers caught on to the fact that traveling seniors were putting their health at risk when they traveled outside the borders. After all, Medicare by itself doesn’t pay for health care received outside the U.S. So some of the Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage plans began including travel medical benefits, including international emergency health care.

Before traveling, seniors should check their supplemental plan’s travel benefits by reading the explanation of coverage for details. If they have limited or no medical coverage where they are traveling, a travel medical plan can fill in those gaps.

2. Recognize the limits of evacuation and repatriation

A medically necessary evacuation can cost as little at $25,000 or as high as $100,000 or more depending on where you are, how far you have to go, and what medical personnel and treatment you need in-flight.

Evacuation coverage provides the funds for and coordinates medically necessary transportation to a medical facility or back home after you’ve been treated. Evacuation coverage typically encompasses repatriation too – that’s the coverage necessary to coordinate and pay for getting an insured traveler’s body home should they die on their trip.

Evacuation coverage would have helped this injured traveler and his family, but it’s important to note that evacuation and repatriation coverage doesn’t work inside your home country. So, if the bulk of your travel will be inside the U.S., this coverage may not be useful to you.

3. Make arrangements to carry medications

Travelers can carry their medications in a carry-on or in their checked luggage, but at least some (if not all) of their medication should be carried with them in case of lost luggage. Medications should always be carried in the original bottle with the prescription label to avoid problems at the border if the bag is searched.

Seniors who take prescription medications daily can order a 90-day supply ahead of time through mail order to be sure they have enough on hand for longer trips. Combine the full supply you need for your trip into a single prescription bottle to save room in your luggage.

Some frequent travelers also like to carry a copy of their prescriptions as well in case they need to get refills while they are away from home.

4. Consider a pre-travel medical exam

Before traveling outside the country, seniors should see their doctor for a pre-travel exam (ideally at least 4 weeks prior to their trip) to:

• Assess their general fitness for travel
• Identify and prepare for any potential medical problems, such as altitude sickness
• Identify any potentially necessary vaccinations
• Get prescriptions for diseases they may encounter on their trip, like malaria

If the senior has any pre-existing medical conditions or their doctor makes a change in their medication, that traveler will need to purchase a travel insurance plan with a waiver for pre-existing medical conditions.

5. Carry your basic medical info and a travel medical kit

All travelers should carry a personal emergency medical kit – particularly one that meets the needs of the traveler and the medical issues they are likely to encounter at their destination.

In that travel kit, you should also carry your basic medical info. Your basic medical information includes:

• The name, phone number, and email of your primary doctor
• The name, identification number, and phone number of your medicare supplement plan
• The name, identification number, and phone number of your travel insurance plan
• A list of allergies and medications

See this travel safety tip: What’s in your Travel Medical Kit for more details.

6. Decide on annual versus per-trip coverage

Many travelers who travel often throughout the year find that an annual plan saves them time, but it’s important to run the numbers to be sure it will also save you money. Having the same coverage for every trip you take during the year means:

• Less time researching travel insurance for each trip
• Less time putting together the travel documents for each trip
• One travel assistance hotline to call – all year long

The key, of course, is to look at where you plan to travel and how many trips you’ll be taking during the year to see if the cost savings work to your advantage. This is where using our travel insurance comparison tool is a great help.

7. Determine your cancellation risk

Many travelers, including senior travelers, are loathe to purchase trip cancellation coverage. After all, it can be expensive and you have no intention of cancelling your trip anyway.

Unfortunately, there are certain situations when it can be helpful, including:

• If a member of your family gets sick, injured, or dies
• If a hurricane or natural disaster strikes your destination
• If a terrorist attack occurs at your travel spot
• If your home is damaged or burglarized before or during your trip
• If your passport is lost or stolen before your trip

No one plans for any of these disasters to happen – especially when a trip is planned – but they do happen and paying a little extra to ensure that you can get all those pre-paid trip costs back is often worth it. See our post on What determines my total trip cost for details on what to insure and what to ignore.

8. Remember that getting home may be critical too

Even if you decide not to purchase trip cancellation coverage, consider a plan with trip interruption coverage. Trip interruption coverage reimburses a traveler for their unused trip costs if they have to abandon their trip and return home for a covered reason (see #7 for some of the reasons).

Trip interruption coverage also provides reimbursement for and helps an insured traveler make emergency flight arrangements, secure transportation and hotels, and even returns them to their trip once the emergency has been handled.

While trip interruption is usually bundled with trip cancellation, many travel medical plans also include trip interruption.

See also:

Safe and Healthy Travel for Senior Citizens from the CDC

As the fall season approaches and students (and their parents) get ready for a new school year, many students will be traveling much farther than their home town.

In fact, according to the Institute of International Education, enrollment in American study abroad programs has tripled over the past two decades. In more recent years, students have also begun heading to less traditional destinations – into countries where English is not the primary language.

Many universities include a pre-negotiated, one-size-fits-all insurance package with their programs, and for many healthy students, that’s enough. But consider the fact that in 2011, study abroad programs and their insurance providers had to scramble to gather, protect, and evacuate thousands of students out of Egypt – and many parents had to pay those costs because the standard plans offered by the universities didn’t provide coverage for that event.

The standard programs offered by universities may not cover:

• overseas medical treatment for students with pre-existing conditions
• trip interruptions if the student has to return home due to an emergency
• theft of a student’s passport, identification, and ultimately their identity
• emergency evacuations for medical and non-medical reasons

Not all universities have an overseas insurance plan for their students. In some cases, universities are cautious about making recommendations to students out of concern they will be held liable for the decisions made, so the decision is left to the student and their parents.

The following are 6 steps to be sure you, or your student, is covered before they travel abroad.

1. Get the university’s insurance policy – and check the limits

If the university has an international insurance plan, get a copy of it and read it. Typically, this will be in your study abroad packet, but it’s critical to verify the coverage and policy limits. In some cases, the policy limits for international medical care are too low for a student who encounters a serious illness or is badly injured. In some cases, medical evacuation is not included in the plan – and that can make a big difference if the student has to be flown home for treatment.

Just as you would need to do with any insurance plan, it’s important to get the details and read it carefully so you understand the coverage.

2. Determine where you will travel during your time abroad

Lots of countries are smaller in size than America, and as a result, they’re closer to other interesting places to visit. If you’re studying in India, will you have the opportunity to visit Nepal or Bangladesh? If you’re studying in France, will you take a train into Switzerland, Spain, Italy, or Germany?

Determine the places you will travel to during your time abroad and make sure the coverage you have extends to those areas as well.

3. Consider the activities you will be doing while abroad

Every place in the world offers unique experiences: hiking in the outback of Australia, diving in Bali, skiing in Switzerland. If you have the opportunity to do some of these things, will your insurance coverage still deliver?

It’s important to think about those activities you’ll have the opportunity to do and look for exclusions in the university plan to be sure you’ll still have coverage. Even travel insurance plans have exclusions, so your overseas plan from the university is likely to as well. And you don’t want to get caught by an unexpected exclusion just when you need your coverage the most.

4. Research the unique risks for the region

Student travelers are exposed to new germs, viruses, and diseases – some native and some transported in by other travelers. Knowing what those risks are ahead of time is essential. Students are also exposed to the local crime, political and environmental conditions, and other threats to their safety and security.

If the university’s study abroad program hasn’t informed you of necessary vaccinations and cautioned you on other risks, it’s a good idea to find those out for yourself. Two websites can offer insights into the unique region-specific risks:

• CDC Traveler’s Health – for health-related information that is destination specific
• International Travel from the U.S. Department of State – for country-specific safety and security risks

Knowing the unique risks means you can ensure that the insurance protection you choose will have the coverage you need for the area you’re visiting.

5. Think about special circumstances

Are there any special circumstances to consider? If the traveler or someone back home has a pre-existing medical condition, will they have coverage? Will your student be participating in sports while studying abroad? Many special circumstances are excluded from standard international insurance plans, so it’s important to review the university plan and be sure it fits your trip and your student.

6. Get supplementary travel insurance if necessary

If you’ve reviewed the university plan and the risks you’ll face and everything is covered, great! Have a good year abroad. If you’ve found a few gaps in their plan that you want to cover, or if the plan is your responsibility instead, then click to compare plans that deliver just the coverage you need for the area where you’ll be traveling.

Not sure exactly what you’ll need? See our Student Travel Insurance tutorial for details.

Before you go, see the Students Abroad site from travel.state.gov for information on handling emergencies, finding the embassy, and preparing your travel documents.

A safari trip is considered by many travelers to be the ultimate ‘bucket list’ trip, the experience of a lifetime, and with a little research it can be.

The centerpiece of most safari trips is viewing and photographing wild animals in their natural habitats, and many tour operators are happy to oblige, driving their guests into the national reserves and locating watering holes where animals can be viewed from open trucks.

Accommodations on an African safari can range from simple tents to more luxurious tented camps with en-suite bathrooms.

If you’re considering an African safari for your next trip, you’ll want to think carefully about the risks posed by this particular trip, just as you would any trip.

1. Choose the Region and Season for your African Safari

First-time safari-goers often choose the popular game parks located in Kenya and Tanzania, the two largest regions of Africa. The most famous game park in Kenya is the Masai Mara National Reserve, which is also the northern extension of the most popular in Tanzania is the Serengeti. Together, these parks are home to some of the grandest and most complete collections of large wild animals that make Africa famous.

Many safari-goers are steered plan their trips in the winter months because they are drier and water holes where they are more like to spot game are smaller and farther between. The end result is that more animals come to the same watering holes to drink, but on the flipside, the landscape is also dry and less colorful. The best time of year is the one that coincides with your personal goals for your safari trip.

2. Look up and Understand the Health Risks

Just like any trip, the health and safety risks a traveler is likely to face while on safari are mostly predictable and manageable as long as you are aware of them. For example, malaria may be a minor problem in South Africa, but it could be a primary issue in some parks depending on the season.

Common health risks include:

• Malaria – often occurs in major game parks while on safari because safari activities often include sleeping in tents and observing animals at dusk near watering holes – all of which puts the traveler nearer to potentially malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Take appropriate preventative medication and use all your personal protection techniques, including wearing loose, long clothing, using insect repellent, and sleeping under permethrin-treated mosquito netting.
• Yellow Fever – a vaccination is recommended for nearly all parts of sub-Saharan africa and some countries require a yellow fever vaccination certification as a condition of entry. Your safari tour group will be able to tell you if you need a vaccination, but you can also see CDC’s recommendations for yellow fever and malaria by country for details. Some safari trips involve more than one country, so be sure to check the requirements for each on your itinerary.

Less common, but still problematic, health risks include:

• African Tickborne Fever – which occurs primarily in rural areas of southern Africa and are caused by a tick bite. Many of your malaria prevention techniques help with preventing this illness, which is typically rare among travelers. Regularly check your body for ticks on your safari and watch for the symptoms which include fever, enlarged lymph nodes, and rash.
• African Sleeping Sickness – also called trypanosomiasis, is transmitted by tsetse fly bites, which occur in the daytime. Again, malaria prevention techniques are useful for preventing these bites, especially wearing loose, light-colored clothing. Watch for symptoms of fever, headaches, and nervous system involvement as well as swelling at the site of the bite.
• Myiasis – a rare skin disease caused by fly larvae that penetrates the skin causing a swollen area to appear on the skin with a central opening. The eggs are often laid on clothing that is left out to dry overnight and then burrows into the skin when worn. Clothing should be thoroughly dried indoors using conventional methods and/or ironed well before wearing.
• Tungiasis – another rare skin disease caused by the direct penetration into the skin by sand fleas which causes painful nodules under the skin often on the foot near the toenails. Preventing this disease is done by wearing closed-toe shoes and avoiding walking outdoors with bare feet.
• Schistosomiasis – an infection that is widespread throughout Africa and caused by freshwater snails that live in ponds, lakes, and rivers. All fresh water sources should be considered contaminated by travelers; however, ocean and well-chlorinated pool water is safe.

It’s important that travelers understand they may be asymptomatic for weeks after their trip. When symptoms do appear it’s important to inform your doctor of your recent trip to aid a more accurate and prompt diagnosis.

3. Don’t Ignore the Risks to your Personal Safety

The best way to understand the safety and security risks of a particular region is by going to the U.S. State Department’s site and reviewing the country-specific safety and security information for your destination. In addition, see the current travel warnings and travel alerts posted on the State Department’s website.

Here are some basic rules that should be followed no matter where your trip takes you:

• Sign your passport and fill in the emergency information
• Check your medical coverage to know whether you’re protected overseas
• Learn about the local laws and don’t accept packages from others to carry home
• Avoid wearing expensive clothing or jewelry, or carrying expensive bags

4. Leave the Driving to Others

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes the rate of motor vehicle accidents in sub-Saharan Africa are some of the highest in the world. Poor roads within the game parks, however, discourages speeding and accidents within the parks are far less common.

Travel in rural areas between parks is a higher risk, especially after dark, so nighttime driving in sub-Saharan Africa should be avoided. According to the State Department, poor road conditions and lack of street lights combined with the threat of kidnapping and banditry also make inter-city nighttime driving highly hazardous.

5. Buy Adequate Travel Insurance

Most safari tour operators require their guests to have travel insurance, but even if they don’t, we do. In many regions of Africa, doctors and hospitals require payment in cash at the time of service, so it’s important to know what you’re facing and have a travel insurance plan you can trust – even if it has to evacuate you or a traveling companion out of Africa and back to the U.S. for medical treatment.

We also recommend that you carefully research and compare quotes for travel plans appropriate to your trip. This tool can even help you determine how much evacuation coverage you’ll likely need if that becomes necessary.

A few more tips

• Research African Safari travel tips – look for the best travel tips for your African safari using the Internet and your guidebooks.
• Pack a travel medical kit – see our latest recommendations for what goes in your travel medical kit.
• Be careful with the water you consume – see our recommendations for safe drinking water tips for travelers.
• See your doctor before you travel – and get your vaccinations updated for your destination as well as getting prescriptions for medications you may need on your trip.

Senior travelers are usually quite unhappy when their insurance claim is denied due to a pre-existing condition and that’s understandable. After all, you buy the travel insurance plan and you expect it to pay out when you run into trouble.

Unfortunately, the topic of pre-existing conditions can be complicated, but we’ll make it easier to understand in this post.

First, let’s start with a definition: A pre-existing condition is an illness, injury, or disease occurring before the plan’s effective date and for which the traveler had symptoms or sought treatment.

So, let’s review what senior travelers need to know about pre-existing conditions.

Pre-existing conditions are initially an ‘exclusion’

Pre-existing medical conditions, or pre-ex, are automatically excluded from nearly all travel insurance plans (unless you buy your plan shortly after making your first trip arrangements).

Insurance companies need to exclude pre-existing conditions…otherwise you could wait until something goes wrong to buy insurance.

Still, travel insurance companies understand that medical conditions occur throughout your life, and they have designed a way to get coverage even if you have a pre-existing condition.

Many plans can cover Pre-ex with a waiver to the exclusion

Seniors – and non-senior – travelers can get travel insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions by purchasing the right plan and buying it on time.

Insurance companies have designed plans that allow you to have coverage even if you have a pre-existing condition.

They do this by adding a ‘waiver’ to the pre-existing condition exclusion.

This waiver overrides the exclusion, and essentially covers pre-existing conditions as long as certain conditions are met.

Specific conditions must be met to have coverage

The pre-ex waiver has conditions that must be met for coverage to be valid.

1. You must be healthy, or ‘medically stable’, during the plan’s ‘look-back period’

Just because you’re feeling fine doesn’t mean you’re medically stable. Medically stable means that you have not had a new medical condition and there were no recent changes in prescription medications. It also means that your health is stable – that you’re not expecting surgery or

The look-back period is the amount of time (typically between 60-180 days) prior to your travel policy’s effective date that the insurance company will review for evidence of pre-existing conditions should you file a claim.

2. You need to be healthy when you buy your insurance

Again, this is to prevent travelers from getting sick and trying to buy insurance after the fact.

3. You need to buy your plan soon after your initial trip payment

Companies require that you buy insurance with a certain number of days (usually 10-15, but some as long as 30) of your initial trip payment.

This is another way the insurance company verifies that you are not buying insurance after you know you need to cancel. You are essentially buying insurance when you buy your trip.

4. You need to insure the full amount of your trip

Finally, the company requires that you purchase insurance based on the full amount of your trip.

Since the cost of travel insurance is largely based on the trip cost you are insuring, this condition prevents fraudulent travelers from buying a cheap plan based on a $1 trip cost and getting the full benefits of the insurance plan.

Medical records will be examined if there is a claim

There are no medical exams required before purchasing travel insurance…it is a policy that is issued on the honor system.

If you file a claim, medical records will be examined during the claims process.

If your trip is cancelled due to the health of a covered family member, for example, their medical records will be examined for evidence of a pre-existing condition.

This is an important part of the claims process and it cannot be avoided.

Pre-ex affects both medical and cancellation coverages

This is a critical factor to pre-ex coverage: pre-ex affects both your medical and your trip cancellation coverage.

For example, if you have to cancel your trip because a covered family member is ill due to a pre-existing condition, you must have a plan with pre-ex coverage to be able to cancel your trip and get your money back.

See a full review of pre-ex coverage.

According to current research over 1 million kids now cruise the high seas every year. While the reality is that many cruise lines have come a long way in implementing kid-safety measures with an always expanding array of amenities and services to guard their safety and help parents keep track of them, it’s important for parents to carefully consider their kids’ safety on a cruise as well.

1. One of the most important things you can do with your kids is to attend the safety drill and keep the tone serious. Then, back up that drill with practice of your own to be sure the kid can find their muster station on their own (there’s no need to return to the cabin if there’s no time because there are life jackets at the kids’ clubs, muster stations, and in the lifeboats).

2. Another thing you can do with your kids, especially those that are older and will be away from you at times, is remind them about ‘stranger danger’. Molestation and rape are not uncommon on cruise ships – for adults and for children. The risk is no greater (and no less) than if they were in their neighborhood, school, or playground.

3. Another important thing to do with those who are tween or teen-age is make sure they can find their way back to the cabin. Hey, these ships are floating cities, so spend some time figuring out how best to get around the ship so they can find their cabin, and you, when they need to.

4. The last thing that’s important to do with your kids is make sure they follow the ship’s posted rules (if the sign says no swimming, then no swimming) and wash their hands as often as possible (to avoid norovirus).

It’s difficult to think of the awful stuff that can happen when you’re trying to relax and have fun, but these reminders can make an emergency situation easier for your kid to handle.

Group travel, whether it is for volunteer work, a reunion, a destination wedding, an anniversary, or simply a summer family vacation, is typically a pre-paid event and there are usually some benefits to pre-paying for a large group that often includes a per-person discount simply due to volume.

Group travel insurance is a good idea when you can cover the entire group for a cost that’s less than what individuals and separate family members would have to pay on their own.

When a family decides to take a trip together, that trip comes with its own set of risks. Those risks are, unfortunately, compounded simply because of the higher number of people traveling together. For example, while group travel is often discounted by the sheer number of people on the trip, if one person has to cancel, can you recover the costs for the one who has to cancel while everyone else goes on with the trip? Will the remaining people have to pay more as a result of one cancellation?

While it may seem best to let individuals or separate families purchase their own coverage for their own needs, a group travel insurance policy often means a per-person discount when a number of people are traveling to the same location for a period of time. So, if cost is a factor when you are looking into how to pay for a group trip and travel insurance, consider looking into group travel insurance to see if the price will make enough of a difference.

See our full review of group travel insurance for the risks, best coverage, and more.