Visitor insurance, as the name suggests is the insurance contract that covers a person visiting abroad or traveling within his own country. It is synonymous to travel insurance. Travel insurance can be purchased at the time of booking the trip. It can either be bought for the number of days the person is traveling or it can also include future trips, which means, it can include some fixed time duration.

What does visitor insurance covers, how much is a traveler or visitor protected, this depends on the insurance policy that the visitor has purchased. But generally, travel insurance intends to cover the visitor’s costs of medical treatment during his trip, loss due to trip cancellations/delays, reimbursements because of baggage/travel documents damage/theft. MCIS helps its customers in minimizing these travel related risks. In very simple words, as a traveler we want to travel safe, healthy and peacefully. Travel insurance helps us to attain these goals, especially in a foreign land.

Medical expenses in a foreign country, especially in developed countries like USA, Canada can be overwhelming and disastrous. MCIS MultiChoice Insurance Services shares the knowledge, experience and insurance plans of its clients, their families, relatives and friends when they travel to foreign land. MCIS’s travel insurance policies generally include coverage for the following:

• Hospital visits
• Emergency evacuation
• Medicine costs
• Loss (lost, stolen or damage) of travel documents like passport or personal belongings
• Delayed baggage
• Trip cancellation
• Accidental death or injury
• Missed flight connection due to changes in flight schedules
• Delays because of weather
• Overseas funeral expenses

Once you have decided the details about your trip to the United States/Canada/some other destination, after obtaining the required travel visa/authorization, the second foremost important thing to be taken care of is the travel insurance. For the obvious reasons, we stated above. It is good to understand that different insurance providers offer different coverage or policies. Besides the general coverage mentioned above, very often visitors purchase additional benefits or coverage. It depends on their individual requirements, the place where they are traveling, the existing health conditions etc. For example, sports enthusiasts making a trip to a ski-station or a water sports destination may require entirely different coverage than an old couple who suffers from diabetes or any serious ailment on a regular basis. The need for different coverage policy also depends whether the travel destination is a high risk destination (for example, a place which often encounters natural calamities or unacceptable human acts like violence, terrorism etc.).

Pre-Existing conditions

Before purchasing any visitor insurance plan, a customer/prospective visitor has to be aware of the pre-existing conditions.  These are medical conditions that exist before the insurance plan comes into effect or an ailment for which the customer has been following undergoing medication for before the start date of the insurance plan. Following are the medical conditions (not a comprehensive list) that fall under the category of pre-existing conditions:

• diabetes
• heart attacks and other heart ailments
• asthma
• cancer
• high blood pressure
• established food allergy

These are the medical issues that do not happen overnight. Therefore, they are termed as ‘pre-existing conditions’ and generally the insurance plans do not cover them or may cover up to a certain limit. Insurance companies do not reimburse for these conditions because they may end up paying much more costs than they can earn from the premiums paid by the client. Moreover, travel insurance are generally short term plans and do not cover ailments running through years. A condition is a pre-existing medical condition or not, is established by a doctor/physician’s report, a lab test (blood/X-ray/etc.) and previous medical records etc. for the claim processing purpose. It is very important for a visitor to be well-informed about the existence and non/limited-coverage of these conditions in their insurance plan, in order to prevent any surprise high medical bills later.

Despite the fact that pre-existing conditions are not fully covered by insurance, it is imperative and useful to buy an insurance plan because not all risks arise from these conditions. An accident/sickness due to weather changes/ailment due to change in food/injury etc. may all bring medical costs, which can be well-covered by insurance plans. Being in a foreign land, this could avoid mental trauma and provide relief that the medical expenses and other risks can be paid back for. It’s always a good start to know everything in advance about the insurance plan and the conditions/costs it will cover in an unpleasant situation.

MCIS & Travel/Visitor insurance

For any visitor/travel insurance need, it is very simple to contact your friendly and quick insurance provider: MCIS. You can email/call/visit us. We are open 7 days a week and 365 days a year! Click on the following link to get our contact details:

https://www.multichoiceinsurance.com/contact/

Our blog is here to help you gain better understanding of your insurance needs and to know that we exist to serve your expectations. If you would like to know or increase your knowledge about some particular insurance-related topic, feel free to drop us a comment in our blog post and our experts will soon make the article available for you. We are simple and friendly, isn’t! So, Quote-Compare-Buy and Fly!

Category: Visitor Insurance

April 04, 2013 at 09:13 PM