Archives for September 2012

If you’ve booked a trip to the United States on vacation or business you’re sure to have a few questions and things to sort out. Like which hotel you’ll stay in, how to get from the airport to your hotel, where to visit in your free time, and whether you need to take out travel insurance. Many people wonder if they need to buy visitor health insurance for a trip to the United States, particularly if they are staying for a short time. Is visitor health insurance essential or can you get by without it?

To answer this important question, consider what would happen if you were injured or fell ill while you were traveling in America. You would need to visit a doctor, or go to hospital. You would be treated by the doctor or as a patient in hospital. You may need to buy prescription drugs. In some cases you would need to be transported to a medical facility. Healthcare in the United States is not free. In fact, health treatment in America can be very expensive. This is why residents of the United States purchase health insurance plans. When you are not a US resident and visiting the country for a short time, you use visitor health insurance.

Visitors insurance usually comes in two types of plans – comprehensive plans and schedule benefit plans. Comprehensive plans have very few sub limits while schedule benefit plans have more sub limits but tend to be cheaper. Benefits include paying for hospital charges such as surgery, physician fees, nursing fees etc; coverage for doctor visits and treatment for injuries and illnesses as an outpatient; prescription drugs charges; and expenses for diagnostic tests.

You can also get coverage for pre-existing medical conditions, which makes visitor insurance a comprehensive way of protecting your health when you travel to the United States. The United States has a complex and expensive healthcare system – your choice of visitor insurance simplifies and protects your health while you are visiting.

Traveling on a Schengen Visa makes it much easier to travel between the 25 member countries (which include 22 European Union countries and three non-EU member states), much less bureaucratic and much less stressful. When you have this visa you can travel to all the member countries on the same document, without having to obtain individual visas for every country that you visit. This is particularly good for travelers who are seeing a lot of countries on one tour. This type of visa is a visitor visa and it is not for working travelers.

The purpose of the Schengen Visa is tourism, leisure, or business. The visa is issued with a particular time frame and it is important to plan your travel inside this time frame as the visa is difficult to extend. You can travel within the member countries for up to 90 days within a six month period. Visa holders are not allowed to live permanently in the member countries and they cannot work. This visa is for temporary travel to the countries participating in the program.

Applying for this visa is simple and once you have it you’ll find your passage through Europe to be smoother and easier. Many holidaymakers enjoy travel on this visa, particularly young travelers seeing the continent by train and bus. There’s so much to see in Europe that to limit yourself to one country seems a waste, considering the distance you have traveled. Even if you are picking four or five countries it is worth picking up the visa.

The following 25 European countries are members of the visa program: Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Iceland, Greece, Czech Republic, Italy, Lithuania, France, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Germany, Finland, Luxembourg, Poland, Malta, Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Slovenia, Portugal, Switzerland, Slovakia and Sweden.

Losing a bag or, even worse, your entire set of luggage when you are flying is a complete nightmare. All the expense and effort that went into packing for your vacation, including buying new clothes, shoes and cosmetics, is wasted when you are faced with the loss of your baggage. And if you lose your baggage while en-route to your vacation destination you are faced with having to buy new items so you have something to wear, and the cost of clothing abroad may be expensive. According to visitor travel insurance experts, the number of claims for lost baggage has soared in recent years.

Perhaps it is not surprising, considering the millions of people that fly every day, that airports often find it difficult to keep track of all the bags checked onto their planes. But with the availability of baggage tracking technology it should not be usual for an airline to lose a bag. Certain airlines and airports are particularly criticized for lost baggage and have a bad record for losing passengers’ bags and belongings.

Visitor travel insurance is essential to protect against accidental mishaps, lost baggage and damaged goods in transit. Policyholders claim, on average, $500 for lost baggage per event. If you are traveling overseas make sure you are properly protected with insurance that covers you for your possessions. You may want to cheek the policy wording to see how much baggage cover you get and also if there are any excess payments per claim or per item.

While it is annoying and frustrating to lose a bag while traveling, at least with travel insurance you can recoup your financial losses. It is always a good idea to carry delicate or valuable items in your hand luggage on the plane, and to avoid taking very expensive or irreplaceable items with you in the first place.