Exploring the world is an exciting endeavour and one that is very thrilling. However, the hustle-bustle of our everyday lives – the running around for meetings and tight deadlines makes it difficult to put travelling on our priority. This makes every opportunity that we can find to travel even more important and priceless for us. The rarer it is, the more cautious we are in ensuring nothing goes wrong. We meticulously plan everything – from checking about climate and buying clothes that suit it to creating a bucket-list of places to see and finding the shortest routes to reach there. But one most easy oversight for most of us is – buying travel insurance before flying!
Apart from planning out the trip itinerary – from ticket booking to hotel accommodation, one must also insure their trip. Usually, we do not opt for travel insurance, especially if we are travelling to countries where travel insurance is not mandatory. But I am pleased to share with you how it greatly helped me on one of my recent trips.
Last year, me and my husband were visiting Europe for our honeymoon. While we were not much keen on getting travel insurance, our travel agent strongly recommended it and that made us opt for it.
We had toured two countries – Germany and Spain, before arriving in Paris, France. One day later, I was down with a severe case of viral fever. This was a tormenting time, since we were in a foreign country and had no idea what to do. Thankfully, our travel insurance plan by Religare covered emergency medical assistance as well as related transportation costs. My husband took me to the nearest hospital, where I was diagnosed with a viral fever and was required to be hospitalized for two days. All hospital and treatment costs were taken care of by the travel insurance.
Even after I recovered, I felt quite weak and was in no position to tour four more countries. So, we decided to cut our trip short and returned to India within the next week. Religare’s Travel Insurance was very helpful in cancelling the availed policy and refunding the difference between our date of arrival and date of policy termination. A small cancellation fee was charged but we were still in benefit.
After this experience, we realised the importance of having a travel insurance policy while travelling abroad and the policy we took from Religare is recommended to all. Apart from emergency hospitalization, it also took care of non-medical expenses like loss of passport, loss or delay of check-in baggage, delay or cancellation of flights etc. Religare’s 24×7 emergency helpline comes in handy if you are stranded in an unknown location or have lost your way. Make sure that you are always carrying a copy of the insurance document as well as copies of identification documents, like passport or driving license while travelling. Taking small precautions can prevent a harrowing experience during your overseas sojourn.
