Travel Insurance

Who should buy Travel Insurance?

Everyone travelling abroad should have Travel Insurance coverage unless they are already covered by their employer's Travel Insurance program. However, do check that your employer's Travel Insurance covers you for your overseas holidays. Otherwise, you should purchase Travel Insurance covering the period of your personal trip.

Children and elderly should also be covered by Travel Insurance as the most important benefit of Travel Insurance – medical coverage and emergency repatriation may not be covered by any hospitalization plans and could be expensive to arrange without Travel Insurance coverage.

How much Travel Insurance coverage should you buy?

Travel Insurance typically comes with two options - a Single Trip Policy or an Annual Policy. If you intend to travel regularly during the year (more than six to nine times a year), an annual policy would provide more value for your money.

If you travel with your spouse and children, you may consider purchasing family plans which also provides more value for money than individual travel insurance plans for each family member.

The key categories of benefits of Travel Insurance include: overseas medical treatment and emergency repatriation; loss or delay of baggage and delay or any cancellation of trip are available across all plans. However, the claim limits may differ.

If you intend to bring many expensive items on your trip, you may want to buy a policy with a higher baggage claim limit.

There may be additional benefits that are trip specific and you should consider these when making your purchase. For example:

• If you are going to drive on your holiday, you should buy a plan that covers the rental vehicle excess.
• If you are travelling to China, you may consider buying plans with special benefits for China such as China Hospital Deposit Guarantee Card.

What does a Travel Insurance product look like?

The premium payment is made at the start of the policy. There is no refund of premium should you terminate a single trip policy. You may be able to obtain a small refund for an annual policy if you cancel the policy early during the policy period without having made any claims.

Most Travel Insurance policies have around 15 different categories of benefits. However, we suggest focusing on the key categories that are important to you when making your selection and ensuring that the level of coverage is adequate for you.

Remember that each travel policy covers one policyholder. This means that if you have a number of check-in baggages you should try to check these in under different (insured) persons.