OneInsure Blog

Travel Insurance

Post By Joan

Going Alone? Travel Insurance Is A Must

An unpleasant surprise like loss of passport, medical emergency or baggage theft is enough to dampen your holiday spirit. And when you're travelling to a foreign destination all alone, facing similar events can make the whole situation a lot more troublesome. That is why solo travellers need to have travel insurance in place before embarking on their trip. Travel insurance covers costs and risks associated with unexpected events that could arise while travelling. In other words, such policies protect you from various travel-related emergencies.

Here’s how solo travelers can benefit from travel insurance

Covers your health

When you’re travelling alone, you have to take care of your health. There's not going to be a friend or a family member to handover a pill for when you're ill. There may also be instances when you'll be faced with a more serious health scare. That is where your travel insurance comes to your aid. With a travel insurance policy, you’ll generally be covered for cost of transportation to hospitals, emergency medical evacuation (if needed), expenses for emergency surgeries and prescribed medicines etc.

Covers stolen credit cards and provides emergency cash

If your credit card or money gets stolen when you’re travelling alone, who are you going to depend on for financial assistance? A solo traveler with a travel insurance cover, however, can get the required help in contacting banking institutions to freeze their cards and more. Some plans provide reimbursement in case of unauthorized credit card charges. If during the trip, your payment card gets lost or stolen, the insurer will reimburse the unauthorized charges you are responsible for on your lost or stolen payment card up until a certain time period before you first report the event to your payment card issuer. Before availing any plan, however, make sure to read through all the coverage exclusions.

Besides this, the insurer can provide you with an emergency cash advance in case you lose your wallet. However, to be eligible for emergency cash, you must have an official police report filed for theft of cash from your wallet. Thus, you can have peace of mind knowing that you will have access to cash when you desperately require it after an incident like robbery.

Covers loss of baggage

Arriving at your destination and finding out that your baggage is lost is no fun. And incidents of baggage being stolen from the airport baggage carousel are not unheard of. If you intend to carry items of high value in your checked baggage then a travel insurance plan that includes baggage loss coverage can help minimize the losses in case your luggage goes missing during your flight. So before you embark on your trip, make sure that you understand the claims process, particularly the time limit for filing a claim for missing baggage. (It must be noted that benefits shall only become payable should there be a loss of an entire piece of checked baggage. The insurer will generally not reimburse you for damage to the luggage or partial loss of its contents.)

To conclude, if you're planning a solo trip abroad anytime soon then you must have realized how essential it is to have yourself covered with an individual travel insurance policy. You'll be able to enjoy your vacations without having to worry about what can go wrong since your insurer will have your back.