The Benefits of Trip Interruption Insurance When Traveling
Traveling overseas is exciting. Most people don’t get to do it very often, so it can be a big deal.
You might spend weeks or even months planning for your overseas trip. You need to make sure to prepare passports, a visa (maybe), lodging, transportation, places you will see, things you will do, and more.
One thing most people forget to prepare for is when disaster strikes. We don’t like to think about worst-case scenarios, but it’s important to have a plan just in case. You never know when an accident or natural disaster might happen or when a serious illness or disease might present itself.
That’s where travel insurance, specifically the trip interruption component, comes into play. What are trip interruption benefits and why are they important for your overseas travel? Find out below.
What are Trip Interruption Benefits?
Trip interruption benefits help you if an unexpected crisis occurs during your trip causing it to be cancelled, interrupted, or delayed. Some examples of this include:
- Death of a family member
- Severe sickness experienced by you or a close family member
- An airline strike or outage
- A plane crash
- Travel supplier or airline bankruptcy
Trip interruption is a benefit found on travel health insurance plans and is a vital component of those plans. Good Neighbor Insurance provides this benefit on most of our travel insurance plans. It can also be found on some trip cancellation plans.
Why is it Important to Have Trip Interruption?
As mentioned above, we never know when disaster may strike. We like to think we can control our lives, but that is simply not true. We also can’t control what happens to those we love while overseas.
Unfortunately, we have experienced this ourselves and have also heard stories of travelers encountering disasters while overseas.
There are several unfortunate things that could happen to you while traveling. Below are some explanations about the risks that you might face in your trip:
Accident: An accident is the most common risk you face when you decide to take a trip. Lately, there have been a number of plane crashes. In addition to these rare and extreme accidents, you face the possibility of an accident when doing typical vacation activities like swimming, hiking, or zip lining.
Disease: Try to imagine spending hours preparing everything for a vacation, and suddenly you or one of your close family members gets sick. We certainly would never want this to happen, but if it does, it’s a hassle! If you’ve already left, do you return home? If it’s the day before you leave, do you postpone? And how much is the treatment going to cost? This is a real possibility that happens more than we would like.
Crime: Robbery, injury because of a criminal’s actions, or being a victim of violence is one of the worst possible things that can happen to you on your trip. While the chances are low, sadly, we have known several people who have experienced this. Losing your passport or money will quickly ruin your trip.
Airline error: There are so many ways an airline can mess up. Often airlines will cancel flights at the last minute because of technical problems or bad weather. This has happened recently to several different airlines, and it causes headaches. This can disrupt your travel plans.
What is Not Covered with Trip Interruption?
Not every unfortunate situation is covered by a trip interruption benefit. For example, pre-existing conditions will not be covered. An expected, normal birth of a child is not covered. Extreme sports like skydiving, bungee jumping, mountaineering are excluded.
Also, if you miss your flight due to negligence or simply change your mind, that will not be covered. It’s important to know what is and is not covered before you participate in certain activities.
3 Benefits of Trip Interruption
There are many benefits to purchasing a plan with trip interruption, but here are just three:
- Reimbursement for prepaid, non-refundable expenses. Many travel expenses like lodging, airline tickets, and tours are non-refundable. Instead of losing the hundreds or thousands of dollars you spent on these things, you can get that money back from the insurance company if your trip is delayed or cut short.
- Covers additional, necessary travel expenses. If you need to return home to visit a sick loved one or if you need to be medically transported from a severe accident, your expenses can be covered. This can be very helpful as last-minute tickets are often incredibly expensive.
- Covers additional costs due to travel delays. Sometimes travel delays force you to need an extra night in a hotel and/or to pay for some extra meals. Trip interruption can help with those costs, so you don’t have to pay these unexpected expenses.
Get Your Travel Insurance with Trip Interruption Today!
Many people do not realize the importance of purchasing medical insurance when making travel plans. But, disasters can happen anywhere and at any time. It could cause you to lose your health and/or your possessions. Therefore, international travel insurance with trip interruption benefits is very important to have!
Good Neighbor Insurance has been insuring international travelers for over 28 years. Unfortunately, we have seen too many cases where trip interruption would have come in handy. Please don’t let that be you.
We offer several travel health insurance plans that also have trip interruption benefits. Call one of our professional international insurance agents at 480-813-9100, or you can email us at [email protected] to find out more.
Stay safe, and enjoy your travels!
