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Australians are back on the overseas train, but many of us still have bad memories of plans that fell through due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With those hard-learned classes behind us, you need to ask the tough questions of your travel insurance policy for any long-term trip. Will travel insurance cover COVID-19-like medical expenses or cancellations due to travel bans or government-imposed isolation needs?And will travel insurance policies cover pandemics or epidemics in the long term?
Many insurance policies offer a limited policy if you or your partner contracts COVID-19.
Coverage will most likely be limited to medical expenses, quarantine, and cancellation if you contract COVID-19. Some policies may cover your expenses if you can’t travel because you’re a close contact.
Travel insurance is unlikely to cover you in the event of cancellation due to government-imposed bans.
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Many of Australia’s most popular insurers, such as Cover-More, Allianz, Tick and Travel Insurance Direct, provide cover for COVID-19. The table below shows which foreign insurance policies cover medical and cancellation expenses similar to COVID-19 if you are diagnosed with COVID-19 abroad.
You may be required to pay optional additional charges for COVID-19 coverage. See the insurer’s Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) for more details.
* No cancellation before departure; $5,000 if you contract COVID-19 while traveling.
Policies covering COVID-19 medical expenses will pay for emergency medical and hospital expenses, as well as medically assisted repatriation to Australia, if deemed necessary. Most policies that cover COVID-19 offer unlimited coverage for medical expenses.
Some policies will cover cancellation and modification fees if you contract COVID-19 before your departure or while abroad. These policies may also protect you from cancellation and modification fees if you are considered a close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, but this is not the case. The amount of canopy could be limited to a few thousand dollars, so check with your particular travel insurer to find out what they will cover, as this can be tricky.
Below are some of the exclusions from cancellation coverage.
If you contract COVID-19 while traveling abroad, some policies will offer a limited policy for additional accommodation and meal expenses in express circumstances, such as:
There are several insurers selling domestic travel insurance, but not all insurers will cover COVID-19. Domestic travel insurance does not cover medical expenses as they are covered through Medicare or your personal health insurance. cancellation or additional expenses if you travel to Australia.
Read the insurance PDS to check if you are protected in the event of cancellation if you, or someone you are connected to, contracts COVID-19. Travel insurance is unlikely to protect you against government-imposed bans.
Travel insurance for a holiday in Australia would possibly be valuable if you are:
Travel insurance policies that offer cruise coverage will (but not always) cover medical expenses if you contract COVID-19. Some of those policies will also cover you if you want to cancel your holiday due to COVID-19, or if a parent who is not travelling to Australia has contracted COVID-19.
If you are traveling on a cruise, you will have to regularly pay an additional payment to load the cruise policy on your travel insurance or purchase a separate policy specific to the cruise. Coverage for COVID-19 is limited, so check your PDS for details.
Travel insurance policies have a cooling-off period of 14 days (or more). If you replace your brain in this period, you can cancel your policy and recover your cash from the insurer.
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) considers a credit or refund of your premium to be a result when:
Ask your insurer what it can do for you.
From the moment you take out an insurance policy, the policy comes into force in case of cancellation due to unforeseen events. Thus, if your insurer returns you, it can calculate a partial refund taking into account the benefits you have already earned. with your policy.
The AFCA considers the proportionate reimbursements for the remaining unused era to be fair, but your insurer will have to figure out how it calculates them.
Visit AFCA’s online page to learn more about what insurers offer when it comes to COVID-19 claims.
Read your insurance’s PDS. First, it is up to you, as the policyholder, to identify that you have a valid claim under the terms and situations of the policy. This usually means handing over a lot of documentation.
Then, it’s up to the insurer if your claim is valid and if there are no policy exclusions they wish to apply.
If you disagree with the insurer’s resolution in relation to your claim, please register a complaint through your internal dispute resolution department.
If you download an acceptable outcome from the insurer’s internal dispute resolution, escalate your complaint to the AFCA, which is the insurance industry’s third-party mediator.
The lifetime probability of experiencing a COVID-19-like pandemic is estimated at 38%. Many insurance policies now cover COVID-19 to some extent, but fewer policies will cover long-term pandemics or outbreaks other than COVID-19.
There are several policies that cover COVID-19 for medical expenses and other pandemics, and very few policies now cover cancellation fees for pandemics that are similar to COVID-19.
An epidemic is an outbreak of disease that occurs over a wide geographical area and affects a large number of people.
A pandemic is an epidemic that has spread across an entire country or several continents.
Insurers such as Allianz, Travel Insurance Direct and Cover-More cover pandemics or outbreaks for medical expenses, but Travel Insurance Direct and Cover-More exclude insurance coverage for cancellation charges incurred due to a pandemic that is COVID-19.
The table below shows which foreign insurance policies cover medical and pandemic cancellation expenses if you are diagnosed with a disease classified as a pandemic or epidemic through the World Health Organization abroad. Please note that if the pandemic or outbreak is classified as a “known event” before purchasing the policy, canopyage will most likely be excluded.
When an occasion becomes “known” it is a gray area, but it is when it is made public in the media or on official government websites. So, check the Smartraveller details for your destination before you go.
* If the insured is with a pandemic or epidemic disease.
** Excluding avian influenza.
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