News

As many people are now planning their year-end holiday travel, it is perhaps a good time to make them aware of the less obvious terms and conditions of most travel insurance policies. First, not all flight delays are covered. People typically think that any flight delay would be covered under the travel insurance policy. I learnt recently that even when a traveller buys a travel insurance policy together with the flight booking, and there are changes to the booked flight resulting in a flight departing more than six hours later than the original itinerary, the insurance company may not cover the flight delay. Second, death from an accident needs other supporting documents (that may not have been specified) besides the death certificate to be claimable. The insurer will require additional documents such as a police report, post-mortem and toxicology report, and a coroner’s report to ascertain that the cause of death was an accident and not caused by medical conditions or the influence of alcohol or prohibited substances. These are in addition to a death certificate (certified by a notary public) and a letter from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (required for overseas deaths) to process an accidental death claim. In some situations, it might take months for the coroner’s inquest and the final finding to be completed. Most people may not be aware of such requirements and discover them only during the most difficult time, compounding their grief. Applying for travel insurance is easy. The real test of how good an insurer is depends on its customer service and, most importantly, its claim process (ease of submitting a claim, assessment time, assessment outcome and settlement time).