Suppose you’ve planned an international vacation with your friends or family. You have finalised the itinerary, chalked out the places to visit and booked the accommodation. The D-day finally arrives, and you land on foreign shores. It has been all easy and breezy this long.
But crisis strikes soon. A member of your group, who had been diagnosed with hypertension, suffers a surge of blood pressure that warrants immediate medical intervention. You do your due diligence and find out that the treatment would cost you a substantial sum.
However, you could’ve easily avoided this expense had you opted for a comprehensive travel insurance policy at the outset.
Why is travel insurance important?
While travelling is fun and sometimes liberating, it has its own share of risks and unanticipated dangers. A comprehensive travel insurance policy in India is designed in such a way that it can provide adequate coverage to you against potential travel-related mishaps.
A travel insurance will cover you against a string of perils while you are on the go. These include loss of passport, luggage, travel documents, or other valuables, and evacuation to home country because of political unrest or a natural calamity, and cancellations or re-scheduling of the trip, etc.
Hence, it’s advisable that you should avail a comprehensive travel insurance policy before packing off for foreign shores. That being said, some of the best domestic travel insurance plans can be of immense help should you be travelling within the country as well. Besides a slew of medical emergencies, an exhaustive policy also covers you against an array of other unwarranted possibilities.
Insurers demand accurate premiums for the travel policies on the basis of country (that you are planning to visit) and the duration of your trip. Moreover, some of the travel insurance providers offer tailor-made policies for you, depending on your travel destination.
Common types of travel insurance policies
Travel insurance policies are primarily divided into two categories: domestic (for travel within the home country) and overseas policy (for travel outside the home country). Stated below are some of the more common ones:
- Family travel insurance policy
This is designed to provide coverage to every member of the policyholder’s family while travelling to both domestic and overseas destinations.
- Student travel insurance policy
Such a policy is tailor-made for students who wish to travel abroad in a bid to pursue higher studies. Coverage in this case is primarily against eventualities including expenses incurred towards the treatment of emergency medical conditions, loss of passport and other belongings, forced hiatus or interference related to academics.
- Corporate travel insurance policy
This serves to cover employees in a company on a domestic or international trip. Generally, an employer can buy a corporate travel insurance plan to keep his/her employees secured during a business trip or so.
How to choose the right travel insurance policy?
In order to choose the best-suited travel insurance plan for you and your loved ones, make sure that you are well-versed with its coverage and claim limit, particularly in cases related to cancellation of trip and loss of baggage. Since each policy is different, one should probe into the policy inclusions, exclusions, and other terms and conditions before zeroing in on one.
Don’t hold back on considering the insurer’s Claim Settlement Ratio, as that would give you a fair idea of chances of a successful claim approval should the need arise. And finally, take your time to compare travel insurance policies. This way, you would get the best shot at selecting the one that fits your requirements better than the others.
Bajaj Finserv offers an affordable, need-specific, insurance solution called Pocket Insurance. You can choose from a wide range of specially curated plans – pilgrimage cover, road trip insurance, domestic holiday cover etc. – to meet your precise travel-related and other everyday insurance requirements. You can purchase these short-term policies by paying an affordable one-time premium and get a better coverage in the process.
