Insurance Agency Singapore | Commercial Insurance and Personal Insurance

Are you flying for the first time? Well, whether it is a domestic or international destination, the feeling for the first-time flyer is a heady mix of excitement and nerves. Worrying about all the preparation, starting from packing to getting to the airport, everything appears a little edgy yet exciting. Dozens of questions may arise along the lines of ‘How to pack for a flight?’, ‘What should I pack and what to avoid?’, ‘How to approach the airport authorities?’, or ‘What documents should I keep on my person?’, and so on. And in the midst of it all, you will be making a blunder if you’re thinking of travelling without an insurance cover. 

In this article, you’ll find a useful guide and some tips to prepare for your first-time trip and ensure your mind is at ease. Let’s have a look:

Traveling without a Cover? Strict ‘NO’

While travelling, you should try to avoid unforeseen possibilities that could burn a hole in your wallet. By adding an overseas travel insurance plan into your financial kitty, you could easily beat the unplanned expenses that may arise during your trip. The best part is, that you can buy an overseas travel insurance policy online as well, which saves your time and money at the same time. Also, if your health is a concern, you don’t need to purchase a separate plan, as your travel insurance covers medical emergencies.

What all is Covered by Overseas Travel Insurance?

An international travel insurance plan benefits you in a various way. You can access this plan instantly if you choose an online travel insurance option. This is cheap, also. Whether you’re travelling alone or in a group, for a family reunion or to attend a wedding, travel insurance goes hand-in-hand with travel. This plan covers you against –

• Medical emergencies
• Loss of baggage
• Loss of important documents like Passport
• Personal Accident Cover
• Liability cover
• Emergency medical evacuation
• Dental treatment
• Trip cancellation
• Terrorist attack
• Expenses incurred during repatriation of remains

This is what an international travel insurance plan covers you for. I hope we’ve justified the importance of including travel insurance in your check-list.

Now that you’re convinced, let’s jump into more travel trips that you may find useful.

by Asako Maruoka

See full story at www.wanderingeducators.com

WHY IS TRAVEL INSURANCE SO IMPORTANT?

This may seem quite obvious, but still, there are a lot of people who choose to travel without insurance. Most of these explain their choice with “oh, nothing will happen” or “I’m never sick”. And although it may be true for the most part, you never know when an accident occurs. For example, I am rarely ill and when I travel to “insecure” areas, I always read and look into safety tips for that specific location, but still, you never know.

During my 7 years of traveling, I’ve only encountered cleaners who stole money in the hotel room and a lost ATM card, but despite that, I would never travel without insurance. The reason for it is very simple; it’s simply not worth traveling without. I have been food poisoned, for example, many times, and if those had gotten more serious I would’ve been in need of some proper medical treatment. Without travel insurance that will often be VERY pricey, to say the least.

If you get seriously ill and need surgery, the costs can hit the roof and you might not afford it. With travel insurance, you only have to pay the deductible (usually about 150 Euro). instead of perhaps thousands of Euros. Similarly, valuables such as camera, computer and mobile phone are subject to theft or breakage.

Theft happens everywhere in the world and it is not only in poor countries that you may encounter jerks or robbery. A good travel insurance can be found for around 1-3 Euros a day. It’s stupid to be cheap when it comes to your own safety and health!

There are far too many examples of travelers who have encountered accidents abroad without travel insurance, who either had to pay ridiculously high fees or been denied treatment. Such a thing will be avoided if you have a good travel insurance covering the unforeseen.

WHAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN A GOOD TRAVEL INSURANCE?

• The travel insurance should give you coverage in the majority of countries
• Coverage for stolen items or things that break should be included
• Medical emergencies or regular illness
• 24/7 hour customer service (you don’t want to talk to a robot while you’re bleeding out, at least not until robots are better than humans)
• A good trip cancellation protection
• Coverage for interruptions due to illness or other circumstances
• Legal fees and costs
• Coverage if the company that you booked with goes bankrupt
• Personal accidents
• Damage compensation for traumatic experiences such as robbery or assault
• That you should not have to pay huge expenses upfront (very important)

See full story at www.swedishnomad.com

At any rate, here are some tips for deciding when to buy travel insurance and tips for choosing the best travel insurance plan:

1. Think about the specific coverage you may need

Most travel insurance policies cover:

• Emergency trip cancellation
• Lost or stolen luggage
• Medical care in case of illness or injury
• Medical evacuation (“medevac”), lie-flat nurse-staffed air flights back home in the case you need to be transported back to a hospital at home
• Medical repatriation, transporting your body back home in case of death.

First, you should always know whether your health insurance covers you when you are abroad. Many American health plans do not. Even if they do, you may be required to pay for all health care expenses out of pocket up front and then deal with paperwork and reimbursement–the last thing I want to be doing in the wake of an emergency! That’s one thing that I like about the General Global Assistance policies. There are no out-of-pocket expenses for medical services up to $1,000.

If you’ll be doing something the insurer considers risky (skiing, backwoods backpacking, adventure sports) some policies specifically exclude injuries caused by such accidents, so you may want to consider buying extra coverage.

2. Consider the relative likelihood that the insured event will happen

Think carefully about your trip and decide what the risk of the insured event happening is and your own tolerance for that risk. In the case of trip cancellation coverage, here are some situations in which you may be particularly inclined to consider it:

• Your flight is expensive
• You are pre-booking an expensive and/or non-refundable hotel, tour package, or a cruise
• You are traveling to a high-risk location during hurricane/cyclone/wildfire season
• You are traveling to a place that has a greater than usual potential for political instability
• You ar traveling to a place where you don’t speak the native language, making accessing and paying for medical care potentially more complicated
• You are traveling with family and/or dependents and want to make getting care, in case of emergency, easier on them
• You have ill family members or health concerns of your own that increase the likelihood you may need to change plans
• You are planning the trip very far in advance.

Obviously, unfortunate things can happen to delay your travels anywhere you go, but the more of the above-listed factors you have, the more you may want to consider buying travel insurance.

3. Find out what your current medical/renter’s/homeowner’s insurance covers

Some of these features may already be covered by insurance you already have. Your existing medical insurance may cover treatment for illness/injury abroad, and your lost or stolen luggage may be covered under your renters or homeowners policy. Check with the companies before you leave to see what they do and don’t cover.

Beware the travel insurance provided with credit cards. I was forced to lodge a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman against a bank’s insurer for unconscionable and deliberate processing delays after four months.

After lodging with the FSO, I received a notice from the insurer advising that it intended to pay.  Never forget the FSO is there when your insurers are not.

TIP OF THE WEEK

My husband and I recently travelled through China by train with our trip booked through a Beijing-based company called china-diy-travel.com and could not recommend it highly enough.

It supplies translations of departing stations for your taxi, what you require, and even further translations to assist if luggage is lost, if you miss the train or need to book a later train.

This is a great help as there is little English around stations or on trains. At its suggestion we bought two children’s tickets for our sleeper (four-berth with a door) which meant that we had room for our bags and space to move. It also meant that the door remain closed all night with no one else coming and going.

We were advised by china-diy not to use the dedicated windows at stations which “are automatic distributions for Chinese citizens who can get tickets using their national ID cards”. The e-ticket provided by china-diy should be presented at any ticket window (which always has a queue) with the passports of those travelling (children travel on parents’ passports so we had no problem with our phantom children).

Tickets for the train are then issued, you find the correct waiting room and wait for the train to arrive. You are then swept along with the dozens of Chinese also on that train. Everyone takes their noodle cups and uses the hot water available at the end of the carriage to make dinner. We took ours from Sydney but there are plenty available in the many small supermarkets around the cities.

See full story at www.traveller.com.au

With fears about Zika outbreaks and terrorist incidents on every traveler’s mind, you may be wondering if you should consider buying travel insurance for your next trip.

Before you decide, here’s what you need to know about the options, what you can expect to pay, and what will—and won’t—be covered.

What does travel insurance cover? Ideally, travel insurance will reimburse most (no, not all—we’ll address that below) of your expenses if you or a traveling companion has an illness or injury that prevents you from taking a scheduled trip, if circumstances beyond your control make it impossible for you to take your trip, or if you get sick while traveling.

For instance, just because your insurance reimburses you if you get sick before your trip and can’t go, don’t assume you’re also covered if you fall ill while you’re traveling, especially if you’re overseas. That’s a different type of coverage, and while insurers may bundle them into packages to make it easier for travelers, it’s not a given that any policy you buy will include both.

What doesn’t it cover? See above—anything not spelled out in the policy falls outside the scope of coverage. Assuming otherwise is a prescription for frustration. Speaking of prescriptions, pre-existing medical conditions are generally excluded, although policies have different stipulations about what qualifies as “pre-existing.” A medical issue you had several years ago that hasn’t resurfaced, for example, might not be considered pre-existing. But, as with other specifics, your particular policy will spell out the length of time your insurance company can “look back” into your medical history.

By Martha C. White

See full story at time.com