Coronavirus – Covid -19 and India Travel health insurance

Overseas Covid19 travel insurance

Most of the travel insurance policies from leading travel insurance players will cover medical exigencies directly related to the Corona Virus apart to your flight-related benefits like passport loss, loss/delay of checked in baggage, Personal Liability etc…The impact of the virus on one’s travel plans could be financially significant…the insured could contract this virus while coming in touch with infected travellers at the airport or onboard a flight or a local train…there could be cancellation or rescheduling of travel dates etc. Further to this, contracting the coronavirus not only result in medical expenditure from the treatment costs abroad, but may also require the traveller to be medically evacuated back to India, and the medical evacuation expenses can also be a part of the medical expense coverage. All leading insurance companies have confirmed that their travel insurance policies do infact cover treatment costs related to this virus.

As on 23rd February 2020, official estimates have pegged the number of deaths to around 2,700 and the number of infected people around 80,000. The virus has now started spreading across several other nations outside China including Korea, Middle East, Italy, Taiwan etc…While there has been many travel advisories issued by different countries, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has advised Indians not to travel to China and avoid unnecessary travel to Singapore. However for those who are planning to travel during the coming weeks and months, there are genuine concerns – what if there is a medical emergency abroad owing to coronavirus? There are two coverages that can come into play for a traveller with comprehensive travel insurance…1) Coverage for Medical expenses for treatment directly related to Corona Virus and 2) Cancellation of the trip due to travel to virus infected countries, and hence applying for the applicable refund.

Typically, all travel insurance policies from leading travel insurance players will cover medical exigencies directly related to the Corona Virus apart to your flight-related benefits like passport loss, loss/delay of checked in baggage, Personal Liability etc…The impact of the virus on one’s travel plans could be financially significant…the insured could contract this virus while coming in touch with infected travellers at the airport or onboard a flight or a local train…there could be cancellation or rescheduling of travel dates etc. Further to this, contracting the coronavirus not only result in medical expenditure from the treatment costs abroad, but may also require the traveller to be medically evacuated back to India, and the medical evacuation expenses can also be a part of the medical expense coverage. All leading insurance companies have confirmed that their travel insurance policies do infact cover treatment costs related to this virus.

The other important factor to remember is that the MEA has issues travel advisories for all Indians travelling abroad…if the insured has disregarded a travel advisory and has travelled to the country where they are not supposed to travel, the insurer is all within their right to deny a claim for expenses for this insured. Hence all travellers must be vigilant and keep checking the MEA website for updates relating to this virus and the advisories issued from time to time. If the insured cancels their trip on account of such an advisory, they will receive a full refund from the insurance company if their trip has not commenced, or a pro rata premium refund in case they cancel midway on account of this deadly virus.

This is precisely why, all International travellers are strongly advised to always keep themselves insured with travel insurance at all times to ensure that they don’t get affected by such medical epidemics/pandemics…which arise all of a sudden. And having a Trip Cancellation/Interruption cover as part of the coverage, will ensure that due to such exigencies, the traveller needs to cancel their trip, they are not at a financial loss since the insurance policy will refund the non refundable part of the tickets, hotel bookings etc, subject to the maximum sum insured.

And when the travelled is aware of such medical emergencies, it may be prudent for them to first go through the terms and conditions of their policy reviewing the inclusions and list of exclusions in the policy document. For any further clarifications, they may even contact the insurer and get a written confirmation regarding the specific coverage.