One of the only things that will guarantee a spoilt vacation is when you have decided to go without travel accident insurance and find you need to use the comprehensive cover it gives. Travel insurance is designed to reimburse non-refundable trip deposits and payments, medical expenses, provide for emergency evacuation or repatriation, cover your personal belongings, baggage and travel delays. Although the travel accident insurance may say that everything is covered, check to ensure each item has sufficient cover, your baggage for instance and that everything you need covered can be covered by the insurance policy.
For your peace of mind, it is the worth the effort to go about some basic research to see what travel and medical insurance is available and whether it is within your budget. Contrary to popular belief, travel agents are not generally knowledgeable on travel and medical insurance policy details so when you are looking into your travel accident insurance, it would be a good idea to bear this in mind. Websites are always a good place to look first as you can usually find everything online plus print out the relevant information as well, and nowadays there are many comparison or consumer sights that pretty much do all the work for you.
A good travel accident insurance policy will cover most situations not just a few that may be part of a personal health insurance plan so it is not a good idea to rely on one of these even if you have one. In general terms, travel accident insurance protects all holiday costs against adverse events such as cancellation and interruption and also reimburses medical expenses, the loss or damage of property and transit delays including medical evacuation and emergency transportation. Always ensure that a comprehensive travel accident insurance policy is exactly that and covers every situation, even where baggage is delayed and necessary items need to be replaced as well as 24hr medical assistance. To ensure complete coverage is part of your travel medical insurance, it is a good idea to check whether overnight hospital benefits are included, whenever the trip is outside Canada or the USA.
If you are ever in the unenviable position where a travel or vacation insurance claim has to be made; then as soon as you are able, contact the travel accident insurance company with all the relevant details. On your return, provide all the requisite information to support the claim, including original medical or police reports, declarations, receipts, valuations, or other evidence of ownership. Although you may feel that your travel insurance company may not be that helpful, that is not the case and they will do everything they can to help the situation if you let them know what is happening and do not forget that they will more likely have previous experience with the problem. Don’t leave purchasing your travel accident insurance until the last minute because this could end up causing problems later on if you haven’t made sure that it is suitable for your trip and just when you need to use it you may find it does not cover your situation.