Canadian Travel Insurance

If you are a Canadian with Canadian travel insurance then you want to read this. When your traveling abroad keep in mind it is the unexpected situations we encounter that throw a wrench in to things that cause our vacation travel or business travel to take a bad turn. getting sick or injured is never something we expect or take into consideration. I can't imagine anything worse than being stuck in a place other than home when sick or injured. Below is a story I ran into while doing some research on travel problems abroad.

Feeling tired, Andrew Malleson told his wife he wasn't up to attending the lecture on medical ethics. He told her to go alone; he would rest on the bed in their Prague hotel room until she returned.

When he awoke, the room was spinning. Dr. Malleson made it to the bathroom, where he vomited blood. Then he crawled to the bedroom telephone, grasped the receiver and called the front desk for an ambulance.

"For a while, I was lying on the floor, thinking 'It's strange dying in a hotel in Prague. I wouldn't have imagined that,' " said Dr. Malleson, 77, who is now recuperating at his Toronto home. "I was quite sure this was the end of me."

By the time his wife, Donna Stewart, returned to their room, her husband was unconscious and awash in blood. Two ambulances, including a resuscitation unit, arrived around the same time to take the retired psychiatrist to hospital. There, doctors searched for the source of his bleeding.

Being in the Czech Republic with a life-threatening illness was frightening enough. What greatly added to the burden of the Sept. 23 emergency, Dr. Stewart said, was the insurance carrier Sun Life Financial Inc. and its service provider Europ Assistance USA.

For three weeks, Dr. Stewart would be embroiled in e-mails and telephone calls about her husband's health, at times smuggling her BlackBerry into the intensive-care unit to communicate with the insurer.

globeandmail.com: Prague medical misadventure a lesson in the pitfalls of travellers' insurance

How to save money: Travel insurance | Money | The Guardian

* Patrick Collinson * The Guardian, * Friday June 20, 2008 * Article historySimple saverBuy car hire insurance in the UK before you leave. The alternative? You arrive at the airport and the car hire desk presses you to buy an additional policy, sometimes costing £10 a day. They say that if you have an accident, you're liable for (say) the first £1,000 of any damage unless you buy a "super-CDW" (that's Collision Damage Waiver) policy.But there is a much cheaper way of insuring your hire car. Buy an annual policy back in the UK - they cost around £50 for Europe, or £110 including North America - which covers your liability for the car hire excess, not just if the car is stolen but also for some damage. Find policies at insurance4carhire.com, worldwideinsure.com and dailyexcess.com.Advanced saving tips1. Avoid paying pointless travel insurance step 1Obtain a European Health Insurance Card from ehic.org.uk or at your local Post Office. This has replaced the old E111 forms and gives you reduced-cost or free medical treatment in EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.Step 2Check your home insurance policy. Many have clauses that already cover personal belongings (eg your suitcase) outside the home.Step 3Check your private medical insurance policy, if you have one. These frequently cover the cost of treatment incurred abroad. For most holidaymakers who travel to southern Europe once a year, the only real benefit that travel insurance brings is cancellation cover. Ask yourself if that is worth paying premiums which are often £100 or more for a family.2. Buy an annual policy If you are travelling outside the EU, it's essential that you buy insurance. Annual worldwide multi-trip policies always make sense if you go on more than one trip a year. Buy at one of the comparison sites, and aim to pay no more than £40 (individual) or £60 (family). That's about what many companies charge for insurance for a fortnight in Spain! But don't just opt for the cheapest policy - those tend to have a limit on baggage claims of £500 or even less, and are hardly worth buying. In a recent Which? test, the best buy was TravelPlanDirect's £23 Europe-only policy for an individual under 65 (£45 family), or £38 for worldwide cover (£59 family) from Travel Insurance Web - both deals are only available online.Single-trip policies are only worth buying if you are traveling just once or maybe twice a year, and not going to the US - although they can be better value for older travelers (see below).3. Don't buy insurance from a travel agent, or your bank estate agents' travel insurance offers are nearly always ludicrously expensive: you can do much better online. As regards banks, customers with "premium accounts" such as Lloyds TSB Platinum have travel insurance included in the cost - but this is an expensive way to buy it. Ditch the account (they can cost upwards of £300 a year) and, again, buy online instead.4. Check those definitions one of the more common complaints to Guardian Money is that an insurance company has refused to pay for a cancellation caused by the serious illness or death of a close relative. Many insurers exclude anyone but immediate family from the cover, and will also refuse to pay out if the holiday was booked when the person already knew that their relative had fallen ill.5. Older travelers, beware Travellers over 65 and with pre-existing medical conditions have the thorniest travel insurance issues. It's crucial to declare any information, such as a pre-existing illness, that an insurer might use to calculate your premium. One tip: don't assume that the businesses or charities which specialize in the over-50s market are always the cheapest. They rarely are. Prices for insurance start to rise once you hit 65, and become alarmingly expensive past 75, even if you are fit and healthy. Travelers making several trips a year should still aim for an annual policy - but the savings over several single-trip policies are marginal, particularly if you visit America.The Which? survey's best buy for the over-75s was from Intune (intunegroup.com), a wholly- owned subsidiary of the charity Help The Aged, and any profits go to support charitable activities. The Intune policy has no upper age limit, and will cover many pre-existing medical conditions. Companies recommended by Which? for single-trip insurance include Columbus Direct and Golfguard. Both companies have upper age limits of 79.6. And if you do have a medical condition ...Cover My Travels (cover my travels.co.uk) has been praised, but will only give you a good price if the condition has been stable for more than 12 months. Others worth trying are 24DrTravel (24drtravel.com), Freedom Insurance (freedom insure.co.uk) and Medici Travel (medicitravel.com). If you have recently been in hospital, try Bradford & Bingley at bradford-bingley.co.uk/insurance/travel.Of course, if you travel in Europe only, the free European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) is useful for anyone with a pre-existing condition (ehic.org.uk).Quick stats Recommended levels of cover you should take out on a typical travel insurance policy ...£2 million medical expenses£1 million personal liability£3,000Trip cancellation£1,500Baggage lost or damaged£250Stolen cash source: money supermarket.com planet saver Climate sure, the insurance arm of Climate Care, a carbon-offsetting company, offers travel cover which promises to cut your carbon footprint. It uses part of your payment to offset emissions created by your journey. Contact climate sure.co.uk.

How to save money: Travel insurance | Money | The Guardian

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Cheapest Travel Insurance

I created this blog to see if I could bring some attention to the cheapest travel insurance. In the past I have traveled to a few places and bought travel insurance and felt good that if something happened I would be covered and my family would be well taken care of. I am not so sure about those facts anymore.

I know you can find or purchase insurance on just about anything from Planes, Trains or Cruise ships.
You can buy travel insurance to cover your luggage and your life. But the key is which one is legit, and will pay off with out having to hire a lawyer and go to court..

Travelers are purchasing travel insurance policies through their agents, and some purchase on line. Now whether you purchase travel insurance on line, or from the travel agent is a matter of preference.
You could be paying a premium and getting less coverage.

I think most of us purchase travel insurance for the peace of mind and not always for the insurance coverage.
Remember, when selecting the best and cheapest travel insurance it is critical that you are covered for your trip. This will give you piece of mind.
I think that there are a number of ways to check and make sure your selection of a travel insurance company is the right one.
The following is a list of things to consider in purchasing cheap travel insurance on the web or any where else could save you a lot of time and trouble:
If you are using a local travel agent, pick up the phone and call the travel agent and ask what comp[any to use.
Ask your agent for any feed back on whom ever you chose, this could save a lot of heart ache. Positive feed back or negative, either way you are better off.
Even though you would like to purchase Insurance and save the money, the cheapest may not be the best choice, consider if that is the wisest choice.
Try and make your choice ahead of time, we tend to make mistakes by choosing when we are in a hurry.
Look at it this way; When you buy almost anything, you ask around for feed back. Just be sure and ask the right people.
I know the cheapest travel insurance is a free one, check it out first. You might be glad you did
So the cheapest travel insurance is just a matter of what you pay for
Remember there is no better person that will watch out for you better than yourself.
Good luck and good traveling.
John