I recently got back to Nigeria from Ireland and I was plagued with a series of careless situations during my travel. My dress was stolen, I got into an accident with my rental car, the replacement rental car’s tire got punctured by a sharp stone, I misplaced my compact camera, the list felt like it was never ending at some point. But through it all, I remained calm. I had travel insurance and my carelessness was covered. This gave me a boost of confidence, and soon as I got home, I yearned to learn more about Yorkshire and this time, understand how to get around the city.
Oddly enough, why don’t many people travel with Travel insurance? This baffles me the most. The average Nigerian has to apply for travel visa application in order to travel to most countries and many people actually purchase tickets and make accommodation bookings in order to show proof of a well organized travel plan at the visa office. Sometimes, the visa application gets approved after the actual travel ticket date.
What does that mean? Well, if the travel ticket is not flexible, an extra cost of ticket change would be incurred. Accommodations booked and paid for become a waste of money and any other cost incurred tied to arriving at the destination on time goes down the tube. This is why it baffles me a lot when many Nigerians, a country where a lot of the people need visa to visit most international countries, are not best friends with travel insurance packages. Depending on the coverage of the insurance, a fraction or the full loss would be refunded to the insured traveler. Learn more about your rights and liabilities on the road at http://itsaboutjustice.law/personal-injury-attorney/.
I also just read somewhere that most Schengen countries require travel insurance before applying for visa, so why do I keep hearing stories about people losing so much money over European visa issues? This is so odd. May be it is a case of buying the wrong type of policy.
Are you covered if you eat the wrong food that leads to needing emergency medical attention while traveling? Nobody plans for such, but accidents do happen.
How to Find the Right Insurance Policy?
A company I have been using to find and compare about 114 insurance packages for years is Squaremouth.com. For those not keen on spending dollars, sorry! I prefer to receive my refund in dollars because I use a US credit card when I travel, so it is much easier to pay the money back into the account charged without dealing with the hassle of exchange rate and wire transfers.
Truth, I am not a loyal insurance provider purchaser, instead I filter through the important options I need for peace of mind while traveling and the provider selected is picked based on the basic functions I need it to cover, the lowest price offered, and rave reviews from past customers. I am currently using April’s annual travel insurance package for the first time, but in the past, I switched between RoamRight and Axa Travel Assistance USA. For those with out US bank accounts but have access to a US address, you can cash an insurance check without using a bank (assuming you have plans to visit USA in the near future). Kroger and the like require a photo ID in order to get this done.
For travel insurance companies in Nigeria, the only legit one that I can think of is AIICO and even that seems to not cover enough. I just read through their terms and there was nothing there about rental car or visa application insurance, so I am not so sure of their extent of coverage. The website only gives a tidbit of information, so I am a bit on the fence regarding this. If you want to go with them, I would suggest you call them and have them send an email highlighting what their insurance covers. Do not do this over the phone, get it via email just for security in case anything happens and you need proof.
Most airlines offer travel insurance package option when booking with them. That does not work for people flying with multiple airlines outside the date the airline provides. I also find that the insurance options provided do not cover enough of what I want.
What to Look For When Booking an Insurance Policy?
The insurance policy should cover AT LEAST the following;
- Trip Cancellation
- Trip Interruption
- Hurricane and Weather
- Terrorism
- Financial Default
- Emergency Medical coverage
- Medical evacuation and repatriation
- Non-medical evacuation
- Travel delay
- Baggage delay
- baggage and personal items loss
- missed connection
- Accidental death
- Rental car damage – important for those who drive while traveling
(Visit the following website to compare various car loans – https://wowloans.net/).
- Identity theft
- Covers most countries
If you travel more than twice in a year, buy the annual insurance coverage and save yourself the money and stress (mine cost almost $300/year for unlimited trips). For those that participate in dangerous sports like skydiving, snowboarding and the like, most insurance companies do not cover that. I pay an additional fee when I want coverage for a trip that would include such sports.
Even when insurance companies cover all of the above, make sure to note the amount of the maximum cost covered. Medical should be at least $100,000, missing items should be at least $500-$1000 depending on the value of some your items (you can increase the coverage if you travel with pricey gadgets). There are loads more information covered when getting an insurance policy from Squaremouth, make sure to read through everything before making a purchase.
Please note that travel insurance does not cover pre-existing conditions. So if you have a heart problem before purchasing it and you want to go to India to get surgery, travel insurance would not cover it. Instead, it would cover it if the heart condition happened as a result of an accident covered by the insurance. So if I purchased a premium insurance that covers dangerous sports like snowboarding and while doing a stunt on the slope my heart had an issue. As long as the heart issue was a new one as a result of the snowboard stunt, then I am covered. If not, time to cough up some serious money.
Be Ready to Make a Claim Properly
The first time I had a travel issue, I did not realize that because it was not reported to a person of authority when it happened there was no proof for the insurance company to confirm it really happened. And that was how I lost out on something that I was actually owed, my stolen camera refund.
For those who travel with gadgets and the like, make sure to keep your receipts in an e-folder just for the sake of issues like this. If there is no proof, then it never happened. Save receipts for all travel bookings because it would certainly be asked for. As soon as an issue occurs while traveling, contact the insurance company to find out what needs to be done next and make sure you are covered. They usually have you pay the current cost then reimburse you after the fact. The waiting time period for reimbursement can take up to 90 days. Seriously. So be patient and make sure to follow up with them. The last check I received took about 4 months of waiting time and money from that helped fund part of my Ireland trip. hehe. When you travel to Boston, make sure to get legal aid from highly reputed law firms such as Car accident attorneys in Boston to get the best out of insurance claims to treat your personal injuries.
Purchasing at Travel Agency’s Checkout Page
I brushed over this earlier, and I feel like I should explain better. From the terms and conditions that I have read from airline companies or ticketing agency offerings, I find their policies to be very limited. They focus a lot on flight issues and not other issues outside airline’s control. The shortest part of most travel time is done outside of the flight so what about full coverage there? Besides the limited coverage offered, the timeline is not always ideal. When I used to travel a lot with Contiki (a tour company), I would buy the overpriced insurance package they offered. The bummer is, once the contiki trip section is over, no more insurance coverage. So when I’d continue traveling on my own for 2 weeks after the Contiki tour bit was done, I had no coverage. That used to freak me out until I started doing my homework and found Squaremouth.
Overall this is all from my experience, and yours may be different. Comment below and let me know what you think. I would add on to this page as my travel insurance experience increases.
Edit – Correction, I decided to check out the comprehensive travel insurance package on Travelstart.com.ng and it was not bad at all. I still find it sorely lacking for the type of travel I engage in, but it may be a good fit for the occasional traveler who just needs the basics covered. Note that it covers only during the travel time booked on the website, so if you plan to extend your travel, any damages incurred during the extra time is at your own cost.
