Shreeraj Deshpande, head, travel insurance, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, spoke with Abhay Rao of the Financial Express about travel insurance nuances, its ins and outs and what should policy takers do to choose a good policy. Excerpts:
•What does travel insurance in India cover?
Travel insurance is essentially divided into two broad categorises. One is domestic and one is overseas travel. Domestic travel insurance is not very popular and rarely used, while overseas travel insurance is taken more often.? Our products would include. Travel Assist, Travel Asia, Travel Elite, Travel Companion and Swades Yatra. These plans can cover medical coverage ranging from $50,000-200,000. The plans offer both medical and non-medical coverage to policy takers. Medical insurance covers, medical expenses, repatriations costs, which one may incur in case of death occurring while abroad, hospitalisation costs, etc. Medical illness is by far the main area of concern for people and a majority of the coverage goes in that area, due to the high medical expenses abroad. Most people who travel, be it for pleasure or business, will rarely carry enough forex, to cover medical treatment, and hence an insurance cover is your best bet. Some countries like the US especially will not even treat a patient unless they have an insurance cover. Other places, especially in Europe, do not even give a person a visa, unless they have a travel insurance that covers medical problems. Non-medical problems, dealing with loss of passport, loss of baggage, third party liability, which takes care of legal issues and costs incurred due to accidents causing injury to someone else, are the main areas where these products become useful.?
•Which avenues account for a majority of the claims that come in here?
The maximum amount of claims are seen coming in from US and Canada visits, followed by Europe and China. Medical claims form a bulk of the travel insurance claims we see, with non-medical claims only accounting for 5% of the claims, which too are usually restricted to loss or delay of baggage.?
•What common mistakes occur while going in for travel insurance?
One of the most common mistakes and misconceptions that people have when dealing with travel insurance comes from the ?pre existing illness? clause, which most people ignore or fail to understand. Most people, after purchasing the policy and going on their trip, end up asking us as to why are pre-existing illness?s not covered, with majority of the people assuming that these illnesses are being covered. A common situation, which we often notice is that many people staying abroad, will call their parents/relatives, etc to come there, who take a travel insurance policy and then end up going in for some surgery or treatment abroad. This is especially seen in cases of surgeries and operations, which do not need to be done urgently. People then try to claim the medical expense for the procedure from the insurance company, without realising that since the policy does not cover pre-existing illnesses, their claim will not hold good.????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????
•How do you deal with the “we do not cover pre-existing conditions” clause within Bajaj?
These days many policies do allow pre existing illness related medical expenses up to a certain level during the case of emergencies. However, in this case too, the component of utmost good faith must be followed, so the insurance company should be aware that the illness is that or related to a pre existing condition. People should also keep in mind that before admitting the policy holder to the hospital in the case of such emergencies, one should call our international toll free number and inform us of the same. Once this is done, we, unlike other companies, can co-ordinate directly with the hospital there and attain all the medical records, etc without hassling the patient. While this calling facility may seem tedious, it is in fact a unique facility for us, since the number is not only toll free and easy to use with a dedicated separate call centre, but it also helps us a lot, since we administer all the claims in-house. Also, once a person registers a claim with us, we immediately send them a message mentioning all the details and documents we will require, in order to settle the claim efficiently. As far as our own travel insurance products are concerned, if a policy holder has been admitted for something in relation to a pre existing illness, then he/she will not be covered under the policy, and such a claim will get rejected. Amongst our travel policies, there are no pre-existing illnesses covered, except if a person has the travel assist plan, in which even these medical problems are covered up to a certain limit.
•What makes your travel insurance product better than the others?
We offer the widest range of products especially on the travel insurance front, and have a great portfolio of schemes. These schemes are based on geographical locations of the trip destination, the number of people travelling, as either family or an individual, as well as things such as if the person is a frequent traveller for business. The premium differs for each country and plan, designed for that geographical area. The broad distinction one will see is that US and UK travels have higher premiums since medical cover in these places is rather expensive, while similarly premiums for South East Asia, etc are a lot cheaper. This enables the policy taker to choose and customise his/her trip like they choose to. Lastly, I feel that one should choose an insurance product for travelling based on the planning of the trip, the purpose, the destination and the services provided by the organisation.