Hospital Fees ? Who has to pay?
When travelling internationally and need to go to the doctor or hospital your travel insurance won?t always pay directly. Quite often you?ll need lodge a claim afterwards. Before making an appointment to see a doctor, or as soon as possible if it?s an emergency, contact your insurance provider and tell them what is occurring. They?ll be able to tell you if they have a recommended medical provide and how you go about organising payment.
Ideally the insurance company will pay for your hospital or doctors costs upfront as this saves you from putting the fees on your credit card or attempting to organise the money from friends or family, especially if it?s an expensive accident.
Overseas Emergency Assistance ? Who to call?
All travel insurance companies have a process for notifying them in case of emergency events and how to handle them. Always look for a policy that offers local phone numbers that you can call in a large number of countries. This will make it easier to contact them if you encounter problems. Reverse charge numbers don?t work in all countries so should be avoided if you are going anywhere slightly adventurous. Calling back home at your cost can end up being very expensive depending where you are.
Always make sure you have the emergency assistance contact information with you at all times while on holiday and keep an additional copy in your baggage and in an online storage or email account.
Excess
A small excess is very useful for comprehensive travel insurance because it allows you to claim on more incidents or items. Many policies offer an excess buyout for a fee (reduces the excess to $0). This is usually worth considering as it means that you are able to claim on anything that you are able to and will get the full amount back. If you are going for a budget or medical only travel insurance policy the excess may be of less importance as you will most likely only claim for high cost events where the excess is just a small faction of the total amount.
Sports and adventure activity coverage
Certain adventurous activities are automatically covered by travel insurance policies, these are usually low risk sports or activities such as bushwalking, kayaking, and cycling. Higher risk activities like sky diving, bungee jumping, and mountain biking may be covered for an extra premium but some policies do cover these normally. You should confirm directly with the insurance company if you are doing any of these sports.
Pre-existing conditions
Some of us have certain medical conditions that could potentially cause problems when on holiday. Conditions like asthma, arthritis, allergies. Some insurance policies cover these type of things, other times they will not and some with stop you from getting the travel insurance policy. These are detailed in the PDS and you should contact the travel insurance company directly if you have any of the listed medical conditions.
Reviews
Reading customer reviews is very helpful as it provides an example of the claims and assistance services that you are unable to get from reading the travel insurance PDS or from the corporate website. Keep an eye out for the ease and speed of claims and whether the company tries to avoid settling claims where they can.
Source: http://contaminatemi.com/2012/03/travel-insurance-5-important-things-to-know/
paul williams sports illustrated swimsuit 2012 aretha franklin whitney houston paul babeu kevin costner budweiser shootout animal house
No comments:
Post a Comment