What is travel insurance?
Travel insurance is a plan you purchase that protects you from certain financial risks and losses that can occur while traveling. These losses can be minor, like a delayed suitcase, or significant, like a last-minute trip cancellation or a medical emergency overseas.
In addition to financial protection, the other huge benefit of travel insurance is access to assistance services, wherever you are in the world.
A few things you should know about travel insurance:
- Benefits vary by plan. It’s important to choose a plan that fits your needs, your budget and your travel plans. Here are definitions of all available travel insurance benefits.
- Travel insurance can’t cover every possible situation. Allianz Travel Insurance is named perils travel insurance, which means it covers only the specific situations, events, and losses included in your plan documents, and only under the conditions we describe.
- Travel insurance is designed to cover unforeseeable events—not things you could easily see coming, or things within your control. If, for example, you wait to buy insurance for your beach trip until after a named hurricane is hustling toward your destination, your losses wouldn’t be covered.
How does travel insurance work?
In most scenarios, travel insurance reimburses you for your covered financial losses after you file a claim and the claim is approved. Filing a claim means submitting proof of your loss to the company , so that they can verify what happened and reimburse you for your covered losses.
How does this work in real life? Let’s say you purchase the OneTrip Prime Plan, which includes trip cancellation benefits, to protect your upcoming cruise to Cozumel. Two days before departure, you experience a high fever and chest pain. Your doctor diagnoses bacterial pneumonia and advises you to cancel the trip. When you notify the cruise line, they tell you it’s too late to receive a refund.
Without travel insurance, you’d lose the money you spent on your vacation. Fortunately, a serious, disabling illness can be considered a covered reason for trip cancellation, which means you can be reimbursed for your prepaid, nonrefundable trip costs. Once you’re feeling better, you gather the required documents—such as your airfare and cruise line receipts and information about any refunds you did or did not receive—and you file a claim. You can even choose to receive your reimbursement by direct deposit, to your debit card, or via check.
Sometimes, this process works a little differently. Travel insurance may pay your expenses upfront if you require emergency medical treatment or emergency transportation while traveling overseas. Or, with the OneTrip Premier and OneTrip Prime plans, you may be eligible to receive a fixed payment of $100 per day for a covered travel delay or $100 for a covered baggage delay. No receipts for purchases are required; all you need is proof of your covered delay.
Many travelers are wondering: Can COVID-19 be considered a covered reason for trip cancellation? And can travel insurance help if you become seriously ill with COVID-19 while traveling? Most of our travel insurance plans now include epidemic-related covered reasons (benefits vary by plan and are not available in all jurisdictions). The Epidemic Coverage Endorsement adds covered reasons to select benefits for certain losses related to COVID-19 and any future epidemic. To see if your plan includes this endorsement and what it covers, please look for “Epidemic Coverage Endorsement” on your Declarations of Coverage or Letter of Confirmation. Terms, conditions and exclusions apply. Benefits may not cover the full cost of your loss. All benefits are subject to maximum limits of liability, which may in some cases be subject to sublimits and daily maximums.
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