Unrealistic Travel Insurance Expectations

While travel insurance is meant to ease the minds of people taking a much needed vacation, a close inspection of the policy you’re buying is necessary — or you might find the reimbursement you expect isn’t coming.

According to QuoteWrite.com, just because a traveler argues a canceled trip warrants reimbursement doesn’t mean that expecting it is realistic if the traveler didn’t read the policy completely or consult an expert before purchasing the insurance.

“If you quickly skim a traveler’s insurance policy, rather than thoroughly scan it, it’s somewhat natural to consider various categories and generic terms as covering everything,” according to the travel insurance comparison website. “Take, for example, ‘Trip Cancellation’ listed in the policy. One would think this term covers any/all cancellations caused by unforeseen events. Unreasonable? Not really. Unrealistic? Definitely.”

A common area where travelers can run into trouble is if a trip cancellation is due to a pre-existing medical condition. In fact, travel insurance policies begin by excluding coverage for pre-existing medical conditions as a cause for a trip cancellation.

Not only does the exclusion affect coverage for medical expenses, emergency medical evacuation, cancellation or interruption, but depending on the policy, the pre-existing medical conditions of non-traveling family members may also be excluded from reimbursement if a trip is cancelled or interrupted.

“When purchasing travel insurance, rather than trying to interpret how pre-existing conditions are defined, the traveler should shop for a plan that offers a ‘waiver of pre-existing medical conditions,’” QuoteWright suggests.

In order to qualify for the waiver, though, travelers would need to meet the following conditions:

1. Buy the policy within a required time period

2. Be physically fit to travel when buying the insurance

3. Insure your trip to its full pre-paid value

The third requirement is particularly important, because being under by just a few dollars could be enough for an insurance company to deny a claim