SRI LANKA: Tourists To Miss Out On Travel Insurance

Tourists who want to postpone travel to Sri Lanka in after the bomb attacks that killed 290 people will not be covered by their travel insurance.

The UK Foreign Office (FCO) updated its travel advice for Sri Lanka on Monday to include details of the nationwide curfew and pending state of emergency.

However, it is unlikely the FCO would issue a warning advising against all travel to Sri Lanka: such warnings area rare and usually region-specific.

Reflecting the increased threat, the FCO's current advice states:

Security has been stepped up across the island and there are ongoing security operations. These may continue for a number of days and the situation remains dynamic.

Please follow the advice of local security authorities, hotel security staff and your tour company. The airport is operating, but with increased security checks and long queues for taxi pick-ups.

Travel policies will not cover cancellations unless the FCO specifically advises against travel to the destination. Travel insurance does not cover disinclination to travel, said a spokesperson for the Association of British Insurers (ABI).

People's best recourse is to go to the holiday company they have booked through to discuss whether they can change their plans.

A traveller to Sri Lanka said: The situation seems to be changing by the hour and we'd hoped the FCO would be able to update its advice more than once a day, but it's obviously a terrible time for their staff, too.

We're mostly just grateful to be safe, but it seems odd that more and more Brits are arriving clueless, even as a state of emergency is announced. We can't make a claim unless the FCO advises against travel, which it hasn't yet done.

UK-based tour operators said normal booking conditions apply but they would consider requests to postpone travel on a case-by-case basis.

Kuoni said its clients flew to Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, the day of the attacks, and Easter Monday, as scheduled. It is in contact with customers at the destination and with local travel agents.

Tuesday will be a national day of mourning, so we are trying to find out whether excursions might be affected, said a spokesperson.

The Experience Travel Group said of six sets of clients travelling this week, only one had asked to postpone their trip. It too is considering requests, case-by-case.

Some airlines are also allowing travellers to amend their bookings. In a statement released on Easter Sunday, Emirates said customers with existing bookings to or from Colombo made on or before 21 April can amend or cancel flights without charge by contacting their booking agent.

The airline is also advising travellers to arrive at the airport at least four hours before departure this week, due to heightened security measures at Colombo Bandaranaike International airport.

A series of eight bombings targeted Christians at church services in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa and tourists staying in luxury hotels in the capital - killing 290 people, including eight Britons and four US citizens, and injuring 500.

Other countries have issued stricter warnings. The US state department increased its travel advisory level from normal to "exercise increased caution" following the attacks.

In Australia, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade advised Australians to "reconsider your need to travel and avoid all affected areas".

In recent years, tourism to Sri Lanka has been increasing. This year, Lonely Planet declared it the top country in the world to travel to, citing improved transport links, a rise in the number of hotels , unmissable wildlife experiences and a growing surf scene.

Arrivals of 2.3 million in 2018 represented an increase of more than 400% on 2009, according to Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority data. The agency has a target of 4 million visitors by 2020.

On Monday, an 8pm-4am curfew was imposed. People travelling to or from the airport during the curfew have been told to make sure they have travel documentation with them. The curfew has caused confusion among holidaymakers because of to a social media shutdown .

A holidaymaker said of Sunday's curfew Locals seemed unaware that all food places would close, they were under the impression some stuff would be open and you could go to within walking distance.

Our guesthouse owner ended up coming back to the guesthouse as he lived nearby to cook us dinner as nothing else was open.

In the longer term, the impact will depend on the political response to the bombings.

The country as a whole is really focused on tourism and realises the importance of how secure it is. This will undoubtedly be a big step back, said Nick Pulley, managing director of Selective Asia.

The fact the bombings were quick to become a political issue who had been warned and who hadn't is the question.

The attacks are bound to have an impact, i think if people link this incident to the war years, it will bring back all sorts of bad associations for the country.

I don't think it will harm Sri Lankan tourism long term.


Tourism Observer

Travel Insurance Is Good For You When traveling Or On Holiday

Hot summer days are here and it's time to plan your vacation to cooler climes. While visiting new and exotic places can be an exciting proposition, any unforeseen situations like financial and medical emergencies and travel inconvenience can easily spoil the holiday mood.

According to industry experts, a comprehensive travel insurance plan acts as a shield when one is faced with serious situations.

But not everyone knows the benefits of buying an insurance plan while travelling.

Travel insurance serves to protect people from all aspects of travel risks.

Travel insurance offers a wide range of benefits to travellers, covering situations such as loss or damage of luggage, overseas medical emergencies and additional expenses due to unexpected travel delay or cancellation.

By having travel insurance, these unanticipated occurrences can be easily dealt with, therefore reducing the burden of unforeseen events and giving clients a peace of mind during their travel.

Travel insurance is a pillar of support during emergencies and hence is a quintessential while travelling abroad.

AIG claims to have more than 90 million global customers. AIG is partnering with major UAE-based airlines to make its offering available to a wide range of travellers and holidaymakers.

Travel insurance protects customers against expenses and inconvenience due to emergency medical conditions, delayed flights, hotel cancellation, baggage delays and so on.

Travel Guard plan offers additional benefits such as medical evacuation, trip cancellation or curtailment, travel delay, hazardous sports and terrorism extension.

Most of the travel insurances have features including worldwide travel protection policy, instant online purchase, simple and easy claims process, 24/7 global assistance with locations in Europe, Americas and Asia, emergency assistance in local language, dedicated travel team to serve commercial, underwriting and claim needs.

Travel Guard also covers you for the medical expenses and evacuation.

Travel Insurance takes care of medical expenses and pay directly to hospitals or clinics anywhere in the world.

Travel Insurance companies arrange transportation by air, land or sea to transfer the patient from one location to another depending on the medical condition, counting the benefits of having a travel insurance.

It can even cover trip cancellation and curtailment benefit.

If you are unable to travel due to illness, you can claim for the ticket or hotel expenses paid.

Trip curtailment allows you to claim for the ticket or for the hotel cancellation fee.

Talking about aspects of protection against travel and baggage delay, if your flight is delayed for more than four hours, there are travel insurance that will cover your expenses for food and hotel accommodation.

If your baggage has not arrived at your final port of destination, expenses for additional clothing till your baggage arrives will also be covered.

A comprehensive travel insurance includes coverage for personal accident, emergency medical expenses, baggage and personal effects, trip cancellation and secure wallet, i.e. credit card fraud etc.

Despite the many benefits of travel insurance, holidaymakers had so far been unaware about the importance of having one. But the situation is slowly changing.

Regular training sessions for travel agencies are conducted even for online portals and other partners.

This training helps them educate their clients about the travel insurance products and its benefits. Earlier, people were not aware about the benefits and how to get the claims. This year, people are becoming aware about need for travel insurance.

The benefits of having a travel insurance are not lost on many frequent travellers as well. Travellers always say they always buy a coverage plan to ensure their holidays go hassle free.

The idea is to prepare for the worst when you are travelling, especially with your family. So, there is no point in trying to save a few hundreds of Dollars and regret later when you run into some unexpected situations.

A traveller said he started buying travel insurance after he had a bad experience in Rome when his suitcase got stolen a few years ago.

I really had a tough time. That is when I realised the importance of having a comprehensive travel insurance.

Now, no matter where I travel and even for short trips, I buy a good coverage plan.

Despite heading out of the country twice a year, many do not sign up for a policy, according to a new poll.

Almost two thirds of UAE residents do not take out travel insurance before an international holiday, a new survey from financial comparison website yallacompare revealed on Monday.

About 65 per cent of those polled said they take out a policy before their trip, a higher figure than the 60 per cent that did not take out travel cover in 2017, according to the survey of 350 people living in the Emirates.

That is despite 73 per cent of those polled travelling to a different country at least twice a year.

The results suggest the number of people flying without coverage has slightly increased since 2017, said Jonathan Rawling, chief financial officer of yallacompare.

Despite policies costing as little as Dh81 for a week-long break, according to yallacompare, a fifth of those polled said the cost of travel insurance was the reason they did not sign up for a policy to cover their holiday. In 2017, that figure was 14 per cent.

Our worry is that a perceived notion that travel insurance is too expensive has put a number of UAE residents off the idea of securing coverage, Mr Rawling said.

Our Consumer Confidence Tracker for the first quarter of 2018 suggested that UAE residents are increasingly worried about their financial health, so people may be trying to cut out travel-related expenses wherever possible.

While 32 per cent said they would like to have cover in place, but forget to take it out, a quarter of those polled said they did not see the point of travel insurance.

Flight cancellations, meanwhile, were experienced by one in five of those polled; about 5 per cent had experienced being stranded in the airport while on a trip, and lost or stolen cash had affected 7 per cent of respondents.

Travel insurance covers everything from medical emergencies to lost belongings, flight cancellations and delays to personal accident cover and loss of travel documents.

However, analysts say residents may also receive a measure of travel insurance coverage through health-insurance policies, credit cards or home contents insurance.

Schengen Visa Insurance – Travel Insurance For Schengen Visa

Schengen visa insurance or vistors insurance for USA is a slightly tricky topic that many travelers get confused with.

Certain visa application procedures, especially the Schengen visa, require the applicants to submit a copy of their travel medical insurance for Schengen area in order to be considered eligible for the visa.

If you’re not sure how to go about purchasing a suitable travel health insurance for Schengen visa or travel insurance for USA and not aware of the nitty gritty of the visa application requirements, read on to find out about all of this and more.

A Travel Insurance for visa application is a cover for any medical or other emergencies that may occur during travel in a foreign country. As you can imagine, such emergencies are typically expensive in nature which makes it worthwhile to have a Schengen travel insurance or visitors insurance handy.

Travel visa insurance can be of many different types and what they differ from one package to another. But in general, most travel medical insurance cover the following in one way or the other:

- Medical emergency

- Emergency evacuation

- Repatriation (dead or alive)

- Return of a minor

- Trip cancellation or interruption

- Accidental death, injury or disablement benefit

- Overseas funeral expenses

- Lost, stolen or damaged baggage, personal or travel documents

- Delayed baggage and emergency replacement of essential items

- Flight connection missed due to airline schedule crash

- Travel delays due to weather

- Hijacking

Usually, the insurers cover pregnancy-related expenses, if the travel occurs during the first trimester. Beyond that, visitors insurance coverage varies across different insurance companies.

In addition to knowing what is covered under travel visa insurance, it is important to know what are the exclusions, so you can take precautions accordingly.

Here’s a generic list of conditions that are normally not covered by travel insurance for visa:

- Preexisting diseases e.g. Cancer, diabetes

- High-risk sporting activities e.g. Skiing, scuba diving

- Travel to high-risk countries e.g. Due to war, natural disasters or acts of terrorism

Please do note that these terms and conditions vary from one insurance company to the other. So it is always advisable to thoroughly check before purchasing one that suits your needs.

Why you need Travel Insurance Fo Shengen Visa

Life on the roads in pretty unpredictable these days, and more so when you are in a foreign nation.

A travel visa insurance ensures that all your emergencies are taken care of during your travel and you have the resources to handle the situation.

The biggest cost centers happen to be medical emergencies.

An urgent treatment at the local hospital can set you back by thousands of dollars.

Even worse, you may not even know how to handle the situation because of lack of local information. Some countries don’t even give you access to medical help if you do not have a health/medical insurance.

In addition to that, there are numerous cases of lost luggage or cancelled flights that not only cause a lot of inconvenience, but also loss of money.

Travel insurance is a great way to cover these unexpected events and be prepared.You do not want to be caught off-guard in such situations!

But apart from these practical reasons, the other major reason why you need to get a cheap travel medical insurance is to meet your visa application requirements.

For several countries, a travel health insurance for visa application is absolutely mandatory.

It is one of the most important documents that need to be submitted to the embassy for processing your visa, along with your flight reservation for visa as well as a hotel reservation for visa application.

The Schengen visa is one of the most popular visas apart that need a travel insurance for visa application. Accordingly, the Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 says that,

Applicants for a uniform visa for one or two entries shall prove that they are in possession of adequate and valid travel medical insurance to cover any expenses which might arise in connection with repatriation for medical reasons, urgent medical attention and/or emergency hospital treatment or death, during their stay(s) on the territory of the Member States.

The insurance shall be valid throughout the territory of the Schengen Area Member States and cover the entire period of the person’s intended stay or transit. The minimum coverage shall be EUR 30,000”

As stated by the law, the value of the travel insurance for visa application for the Schengen countries needs to be at least EUR 30,000.

You can choose anything beyond that depending on your travel duration and your personal circumstances. But whatever it is that you choose, this is one requirement you must fulfill in order to get your visa application approved.

How to get Shengen Visa Insurance

This is probably one of the most burning questions many travelers face, which best travel insurance to buy and how.

Before you choose a particular low cost travel insurance for Schengen visa application, make sure all the following terms are met:

- Must provide minimum cover of €30,000

- Medical and hospitalization charges must be covered in all the countries you are applying for visa

- Repatriation expenses to your home country

- Emergency medical evacuation

- Preferably $0 deductible expense -Deductible expense is the out-of-pocket expense you have to incur before claiming insurance.

- You must be covered for the entire duration of your travel

Check for the above mentioned items before you purchase Schengen visa insurance so you are assured that the visa application will not get rejected because of inadequate travel insurance.

Now coming to the question of how to purchase a travel insurance for Schengen area, visitors insurance for USA visa, low cost travel insurance for USA visa, safe travels USA insurance or relevant travel medical insurance for any country.

This can be done in one of two ways. One of your options is to search for an insurance company in your country that can provide you with a visitors insurance for USA, low cost Schengen visa insurance or relevant travel health insurance with suitable coverage. But this is a cumbersome process.

Imagine having to look through different packages offered by a bunch of different insurance companies and then comparing all of them in order to pick one.

In this process, you may even have to reach out to the companies individually to understand which one would suit you better. This could potentially lead to a whole lot of mess. Holiday planning should be fun, not stressful.

Your other alternative is to find a verified agent who can help you purchase the right travel insurance for visa application.


Tourism Observer