Are Both International Travel Insurance and Overseas Health Insurance Necessary?

Overseas health insurance could be a useful addition to your international travel insurance

Travel is one of the most common holiday pastimes across the world. People often go on international vacations or sometimes they have to travel internationally for work. Such international travel could certainly burn a hole in your pocket, if you do not plan well for it. This is where travel insurance comes in.

What Is Travel Insurance?

Travel insurance is essentially insurance that you buy to secure yourself against any mishaps that may occur during a trip. It covers everything from loss of baggage and identity proof, to medical expenses for injuries or accidents that might happen on the trip. Travel insurance is basically of two types:

1. Single Trip Travel Insurance: As the name suggests this type of travel insurance can be availed only for a single trip.

2. Multi Trip Travel Insurance: This type of travel insurance covers you for up to 60 days of travel in a year on multiple trips.

Purchasing travel insurance can provide a great deal of security, as it is reassuring to know that even if something goes wrong, your insurance will take care of it. Similarly, an overseas health insurance plan can take care of your medical expenses while you are travelling abroad.

What is International Travel Health Insurance?

Health insurance plans basically cover medical expenses and hospitalisation bills that you may incur. International travel health insurance is a health insurance plan that covers any medical expenses that may occur while you are overseas. You need therefore purchase it only when you plan to travel abroad. It will save you significant financial expenditure, in case of a medical emergency while you are in another country.

Different health insurance policy offer different types of cover. So, make sure you clearly understand the features and benefits, the different policies offer, before deciding on the one for you. Read the policy wordings or talk to your insurance agent for clarifications.

Are Both Needed?

While travelling abroad, the possible difference in climate could cause a person to fall ill, or an accident could happen due to the unfamiliar terrain, causing an injury. A standard travel insurance plan does usually cover medical expenses that arise out of such situations. That is to say that travel insurance will cover medical emergencies that happen abroad.

However, medical expenses arising out of pre-existing medical conditions will not be covered by travel insurance plans. For example, travel insurance will not insure a man, who has incurred medical expenses while abroad, due to a pre-existing cardiovascular condition.

However, a few insurance companies in India have now launched comprehensive standalone health products that offer a choice to the insured to undergo medical treatment abroad instead of the home country, as an optional cover. The premium for these type of policies is on the higher side though.

Thus, a travel insurance policy alone will be more than enough for a trip overseas, unless someone has a pre-existing disease. In which case it would be wise to invest in an overseas health insurance policy.