While there are millions of people travelling abroad yearly, many of them are not properly secured should something happen on their travels. Vera Nagtegaal, Executive Head of Hippo.co.za provides some tips on travel insurance:

Do your research for cost-effective cover

A basic form of travel insurance is often provided by your bank when purchasing an air ticket using your credit card. But, be warned that this cover may not be sufficient as it often places caps on age, costs, services and certain destinations. For this reason, Nagtegaal recommends going through your policy with a fine-tooth comb to determine exactly what is included and what is excluded.

Most travel insurance offerings cover includes emergency medical expenses, hospital cash benefit per day, personal accident cover in the event of death or permanent disability, emergency travel and accommodation, legal assistance and personal liability cover, among others. However not all policies are the same and adds that various types of travel insurance are available depending on your needs. These include:

Business Insurance: If you’re travelling for business you would fall into one of two categories. Business administrative insurance for people who are typically travelling to a meeting, or business industrial insurance if you are travelling to perform a service or some sort of manual labour.  This type of insurance generally provides cover for aspects like delayed or cancelled flights, lost passports and medical cover.

Senior citizen travel insurance: For those over 70, for example, this insurance covers things like medical expenses, a visit from a family member if necessary, missed flights or cancellations and lost or delayed luggage.

Student travel insurance: This type of insurance is for younger people travelling for work or leisure and includes cover for emergency medical costs, injury or damage to a third person or their property, cancellation of an entire trip and missed flights.

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