Travel Emergency Insurance

The adage, “don’t leave home without it” is quite a propos. Most people who travel a lot outside their home province have, or should have, an annually renewable travel emergency insurance package that covers them for up to a specified number of days during each trip outside their home province. Those who don’t travel frequently should arrange individual trip coverage to take effect when they leave the province, to last for the full duration of their trip.

Why do you need travel insurance? Not particularly for trip cancellation or lost baggage, although that might be convenient. The big ticket issue is your getting ill or injured while you are out of your home province and, more particularly, out of Canada. Even within Canada, different provinces have differing fee schedules for various medical services and, if the one you get is priced higher than your own province allows, guess who pays the difference!

Your dream vacation can be interrupted by the proverbial banana peel at the top of a long flight of stone steps, leaving you a barely breathing bundle at the bottom, with a bunch of broken bones. Your trip to close a successful deal can be messed up by your contracting a rare disease that has you in isolation in a hospital ward, with nobody who speaks your language anywhere nearby. An afternoon shopping south of the border can have you ensconced in emerge and owing thousands of dollars over and above what OHIP will pay.

When traveling outside your province of residence you need to have insurance that will provide the funds to pay for whatever medical care you and the members of your party need if you are ill or injured. That includes doctors, paramedics, hospitals, renting accommodation for party members, air evacuation, return of your dead body, return of your automobile, visit from a family member from home, just to hit the high points. You need it for as long as you will be away and to cover all members of your traveling party. And when you have visitors from outside Canada coming to stay, you need to be sure they are covered the same way.