Business Travel Bristol

While it is true that emergency medical insurance was designed to help you cope financially with unexpected health problems, travel insurance is vital when the unexpected occurs. Many travel insurance medical plans come with an emergency assistance phone number. In a crisis they can answer questions like: Where can you find a good doctor? What if they speak a different language? Are local medical facilities safe? What if you have to be air-ambulanced to another hospital? Who will contact your family if you can't?

Most of us treat buying travel insurance as a necessary evil. You don't leave home without it but you don't give much importance to the process of choosing the right coverage. Insurance plans are not all the same so you need to make sure the one you choose covers the sort of liabilities and problems you could reasonably anticipate.

Factors to consider include:

• Will it cover any costs if your travel plans have to be changed? Trip cancellation insurance will pay you the non-refundable portion of your trip (ie, if you have pre-paid for your hotel) and it will make the adjustments necessary to your airline ticket as well (ie, if you must travel home immediately, there will be no extra costs on your new ticket). You may, however, be required to pay the additional charges on your airline ticket up front which the insurance company will reimburse later.
• If you have a pre-existing medical condition check to see whether there are any exclusions on the policy, some policies maintain that if your pre-existing condition is "stable and controlled" for a specified period of time then the medical condition would be covered.
• Cheapest or most expensive is not the criteria you should use when selecting travel insurance. For example, if you only want trip cancellation insurance, don't choose a more expensive package that includes other coverage such as medical costs.
• If you travel abroad frequently and want every possible aspect covered (cancellation, health, baggage theft, etc), look to the annual combination packaged-plans, as they will normally offer a better price.