Getting Cheap Holiday Insurance As A New Traveler

Given the availability of cheap holiday insurance plans, it is highly recommended for every traveler to purchase a plan prior to his or her trip. A holiday is meant to be a fun-filled, relaxing experience, but it can turn into a tiring and unpleasant one if any sickness or injury occurs when you are away from your home base and familiar comforts and amenities, especially when you might need health related or medical services. Whether you are traveling within the US or abroad, medical care and related services can be very expensive, putting a big dent in your budget, and in cases of critical illness it can be astronomical. To avoid the astounding costs that might occur as a result of injury or sickness when on a holiday, you can purchase cheap holiday insurance through the following steps

Step 1: Identifying your insurance requirement

Depending on the frequency of travel in your life, whether for work or leisure, you should explore Single trip, multi trip or annual plans. Along with this, you should look at whether you are traveling alone or with family. If you travel alone most of the time, you should explore individual plans and opt for Family plans when traveling with family, or Group Travel plans, to include all members of a group traveling together. Many insurance providers also offer multi coverage package plans with specialized features, allowing you to protect your specialized needs and personal wellbeing.

Step 2: Know The Types of Holiday Travel insurance

While planning any trip, review your existing insurance policies to see if they offer any type of travel/trip coverage. Some health or medical insurance policies will cover medical emergencies while on a trip nationally and some might even provide cover for international travel. Many credit cards (especially gold level or higher) also offer insurance cover, including medical assistance, baggage loss, cancellation cover and even accidental death and dismemberment insurance, if you charge your airline or travel tickets to their cards, for an additional fee.

Medical Insurance: Medical insurance offers several types of coverage, which includes emergency medical evacuation to the nearest medical facility (or back to the US, if traveling internationally). Emergency Reunion covers the expenses of bringing a family member to the injured during a medical emergency, if emergency evacuation cannot be done. Medical insurance can also include cash payment in case of accidental death or loss of limb or body part. Finally Medical insurance also provides Repatriation benefits, of bringing the deceased travelers body back to the home base. Medical insurance plans can apply to local as well as international travel and can be short term as well as long term.

Flight Accident Insurance: If most of your travel is by air, this type of insurance can be viable for you as it offers monetary benefits if you are injured or killed in an air accident. Normally this type of insurance does not cover accidents or illness that result if you use any other mode of transport for travel.

Travel Protection: This type of insurance usually provides coverage if you are forced to cancel your travel  plan or vacation due to unforeseen circumstances like accident, illness or other medical-related emergency situations. This also covers travel assistance services like baggage lost or delayed. This can also include coverage of accommodation, meals and new travel plans if your flight is cancelled or delayed. Travel protection insurance can also offer document protection to help you replace your passport or related travel documents in case of loss or theft.

Step 3: Get Quotations

Most companies will be able to give you quotations over the Internet or phone. Collect these quotations and compare their value to you. Some companies may offer package deals that may suit you better and be more reasonably priced. However, other packages may include certain features that are not useful to you.

Step 4: Make Your Purchase

Most holiday and travel insurance companies can process credit cards online or over the phone call. Once the payment has been made, your insurance certificates will arrive in the mail in the next few business days. Make sure you verify these policies and have them corrected in case of any mistakes.