InsureMyTrip Blog

We’re pleased to welcome a guest writer to our blog today.  Eileen Ogintz is a travel writer who runs the wonderful site Takingthekids.com, which is an indispensable resource for families planning to travel with children.

Taking the Kids and Getting Travel Insurance
By Eileen Ogintz

For once I kept my mouth shut. I resisted the temptation to say “I told you so!”

When I heard about the couple’s honeymoon plans — a Caribbean resort during hurricane season – I suggested travel insurance.  I worried about a storm derailing their plans.

But they were too busy with the wedding to consider insurance that they were sure they wouldn’t need. None of us could have anticipated a power outage at Los Angeles International Airport that grounded all flights for several hours on the day they were leaving, causing them to miss their connecting flights and, ultimately, the first two days of their honeymoon. Their bags didn’t arrive until two days after they did.

The travel snafu ultimately forced them to spend several hundred dollars on airport hotels, meals and clothes — money that travel insurance would have refunded. Travel insurance may also have been able to get them rerouted and on their way more quickly.

Too many people think travel insurance is for seniors with serious medical problems. Not anymore. Not with volcanic ash, blizzards, hurricanes, terrorism and old-fashioned family emergencies causing travel plans to implode. These days, I like the idea of having a fairy godmother watching over my shoulder when I travel, even if I have to pay for it (typically 4-8 per cent of the trip.)

Even in the best of times, traveling with kids can be as unpredictable as hurricane season. A broken ankle, appendicitis, even an ear infection can force parents to delay departure. In other cases, families have to return from vacations early because of emergencies at home. Think of travel insurance as a way to protect your investment in your trip.  It can pay for hotels if you are stranded like so many were after last year’s holiday blizzard in the Northeast or out of pocket medical expenses—as it did for me when a scratched cornea sent me to the ER.  On a ski trip, my travel insurance picked up nearly $1,000 in costs that my medical insurance didn’t cover. Had it been necessary, the travel insurer would have arranged for medical evacuation and covered all of the costs if we’d needed to change our flights to return home earlier.

The key: Assess your needs before you sign on the dotted line, and read the fine print. Will your kids be insured free?  Once, we were delayed overnight without our bags when our connecting flight was canceled. I was annoyed to discover that, because our bags were returned to us within 24 hours, our travel insurance didn’t cover the essentials we had to buy.

Still, I think  travel insurance is worth it, especially if you’ve invested a lot of money up front — like for a cruise, for plane tickets to Hawaii, or for a ski condo during a holiday week — or if you’re visiting a country that might not have the best medical care.  It’s worth it for the peace of mind too, just knowing you don’t have to worry if your elderly mom gets sick and you have to return home or if your backpacking college student needs medical care far from home.

Most families opt for a package plan that will cover any costs incurred if they need to cancel or disrupt their trip because of a medical emergency, a hurricane, or a terrorist act. The insurance should cover the cost of changing your flight, as well as the unused portion of your vacation, if an emergency forces you to return early. If you’re traveling solo with a child and become sick or injured, some of these policies will even provide for a chaperone for your child.  But you can buy insurance just for what you need—medical evacuation, for example.

As for the honeymoon couple, their airline ultimately gave them some vouchers to make up for the inconvenience. They had a terrific time — once they got there.

Copyright 2011 Eileen Ogintz

For more on Eileen’s adventures and misadventures, visit www.takingthekids.com Her TakingtheKids  family travel guides are  newly updated and available for the NOOK and Kindle with individual sections starting at 99 cents.

Bri, Marketing

In my life, there are various people who travel.  One of my oldest friends from my junior high school days racks up serious frequent flier miles globetrotting for business.  My sister, a professor of antiquities, is always flying off to some envious locale for a conference or a “research” trip (note, dear, sister, that all those photos of you posing with a glass of wine in front of a gorgeous seascape don’t quite match up to your talk of dusty library carrels and hours spent poring over engravings).  And a dear friend from graduate school invariably spends her summers, unfettered by work responsibilities, exploring various corners of the world with the kind of adventurous yen that I can’t quite muster.  I admire it, but I can’t muster it.

Aside from the business-travel guy, whose needs are covered entirely by his company, most of the travelers in my life find themselves in frequent need of travel insurance.  For my sister, it’s a need usually heightened by the requirements of embassies, host organizations, and other entities; for my adventure-traveling friend, it’s a need identified, somewhat regretfully, by a rather embarrassing incident on a backpacking trip in the Highlands.  (More on that in a moment.)  And while both of these women are quite educated, savvy creatures more than capable of researching and purchasing their own travel insurance, guess who they usually call to help them?

Luckily for both of them, they not only have me — they have my husband, who happens to be the Product Underwriting Manager here at IMT.  He’s the one who got on the phone with my sister last summer and convinced her that she was about to be penny-wise and pound-foolish in purchasing a lesser (and therefore less expensive) policy for her upcoming sabbatical.  It’s a good thing he did, too, because between flight delays and unexpected problems with accommodations, she certainly ended up needing the coverage he recommended.  As for my adventurous friend, she received the tag-team approach on a recent visit to our home.

As she was detailing the plans for her upcoming trip to Africa, I managed to gently prod her several times into proclaiming “Oh!  While I’m here, I should ask you guys about insurance.”  My husband then took over with the details, as I helpfully chimed in from time to time.  For example: “You know, he’s right about getting medical evacuation and hospital of choice.  You may not want to, say, fall over a waterfall in Africa, gash your leg severely — or worse — and end up stranded in the middle of nowhere, until some strange men pull up in a Jeep and offer to try to transport you to a hospital 20 miles or so away.”

Obviously I’m not usually so specific, but remember that embarrassing incident I referred to earlier?  This scenario at the waterfall was the spectacular ending to her Highlands adventure.  Had it not been for the kindness of (fortunately altruistic) strangers, she’d have been in a very dangerous predicament.  She knew it, too.  She left our house armed with plenty of information and several quotes for appropriate policies.

I’m certain that both my sister and my friend would be able to find travel insurance on their own, but they don’t have to.  That’s what friends (and relatives) are for.  When you need advice on any subject, research is great — but let’s be honest; if you’ve got a friend who knows something about it, you’ll ask them as well, and be more likely to feel comfortable that the information they’ve given you is correct.  And while not everyone has an old college buddy or close relative working in the travel insurance industry, you do have the next best thing: InsureMyTrip.

Our Customer Care representatives are licensed insurance specialists who don’t work on commission, so they not only know what they’re talking about, but they’ll only recommend the policies that are best for you.  They don’t have a certain number of calls that they have to take in a day, so they can give you the attention and time you need to make an informed decision.  Just like a good friend, they’re available to help you out when you need it, by phone, live chat, or email — and they’re here seven days a week.

You may not have an actual friend who works at IMT (and who can oh-so-kindly remind you of your most embarrassing travel moments), but we’d like to be your travel insurance companions nonetheless.  It’s often said that in life, it’s not what you know, but who you know.  Why not get to know InsureMyTrip?

After the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan on March 11, 2011, our thoughts turned immediately to how we, as travel insurance professionals, could assist in the relief efforts.  While we can’t send the whole staff of InsureMyTrip to Japan, we can at least make sure that those traveling to the region as aid workers, or to visit and help family members affected by the disaster, are protected.

We’re partnering with HCC Medical Insurance Services to offer a 20% discounted rate on the Atlas International plan, which provides medical and evacuation coverage.  This discount is available only to travelers going to Japan for relief efforts or family reasons.  In order to redeem this offer, simply enter “Japan” as your destination in our quote form.  When your results appear, choose the “Atlas International” plan, and the discounted rate will automatically be shown.

Plan highlights include:

• Medical coverage from $50,000 to $1,000,000
• Emergency medical evacuation to $500,000
• 24-hour emergency assistance
• 24-hour accidental death coverage to $25,000 (for additional stand-alone AD&D coverage, consider our Travel Accident Plan)

Please be aware that if you are seeking coverage other than medical and evacuation benefits for travel to Japan, your options may be limited at this time due to the nature of this particular event.  We urge you to call our Customer Care Center at 800-487-4722 if you have questions about specific coverage options.

We continue to hold the residents of Japan, and all those affected by the earthquake and tsunami, in our thoughts.  We wish all those heading to that region safe travels.

Editorial Update: As of 4/7/11, this offer is no longer available.  Please contact our Customer Care Center to discuss other available policies for insuring travel to Japan.

Becky, User Experience Analyst

InsureMyTrip recently ran a blog contest, in which employees were encouraged to submit posts for the blog in two categories.  The following post was the winner in the “Travel Insurance and Travel News” category.  Congratulations, Becky!

The start of the summer means the start of many people’s vacations.  While traveling is exciting and definitely something to look forward to, it can also be stressful.  Flying can be a hassle, and with the recent Spirit Airlines and British Airways strikes, you become painfully aware that there are so many things that can go wrong with air travel.  Travel insurance is a great tool when it comes to flying because package plans provide coverage for delayed or canceled flights.  These plans also protect you in the event that your baggage is lost or delayed.  And if your trip is interrupted due to a covered reason, there is coverage for that too. (more…)

Bri, Marketing

We were pleased to note that respected travel guru Arthur Frommer had mentioned, on his official blog, the existence of “hospital of choice” plans among the smorgasbord of travel insurance options available to consumers.  Having the ability to request a particular hospital in the event that you have to be evacuated for medical attention during a trip is certainly a benefit worth pointing out to travelers.  However, Mr. Frommer’s article only mentions one specific company.  In the interest of sharing the wealth, we thought it was important to point out that, as a comparison website, we offer several choices from a range of companies.  We also figured that, while we’re on the subject, you might want to know exactly what Hospital of Choice means when you’re comparing travel insurance. (more…)

Hristo, Web designer

There’s a little more than a month before the official opening ceremony of the biggest sports venue on the planet. The name of the sport is different around the world — most know it as Football, some call it Soccer –  but the whole planet is crazy about it.  If you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of fans planning to flock to South Africa for this year’s World Cup, or if you’re planning to travel to South Africa for any other reason, looking into travel insurance may be a good idea for any number of reasons. (more…)

Peter, EVP

Our customer care team is reporting a steady increase in call volume from relief workers and volunteers flowing into Haiti. With this, questions have arisen concerning appropriate and available travel insurance coverage. It is important to be aware that many Trip Cancellation Package Policies provide limited or no coverage to Haiti due to the earthquake, whereas certain Travel Medical plans are much better alternatives. (more…)

NOTE: This discount is no longer available as of March 16, 2010.

InsureMyTrip and HCC Medical Insurance Services are providing medical and evacuation coverage at reduced rates for travelers heading to Haiti to aid in relief efforts.

Purchase the Atlas International Plan at 20% off standard rates. This exclusive, discounted plan is available only to travelers visiting Haiti. (more…)