Annual travel insurance is appropriate for many people who take multiple small trips throughout the year, such as:
-
Business Travelers
Examples include business owners, sales or marketing executives, journalists, IT consultants or people in similar professions.
-
Active and Healthy Retirees
Many people save throughout their life so that when they retire, they can spend time traveling around the world. For these individuals, annual travel insurance for seniors is ideal.
-
Travel Lovers
No matter what the age is, some people simply love to travel and take frequent vacations to different places in a single year.
If you are taking multiple trips in a year, it is advisable research and purchase the best annual travel multi trip travel insurance policy for you that would provide coverage throughout the year. It usually provides higher coverage and is often cheaper.
Frequent travelers routinely travel on a very short notice and should not have to go through researching and buying a single trip policy for every trip they take. Some travelers may even forget to purchase travel insurance every time they travel. Once an annual travel policy is purchased, a person can travel as many times as they like in a year. As you will have the same coverage throughout the year, you will know what to expect each time you travel abroad.
In annual travel insurance, a year starts from the effective date of the policy, which is usually the date selected by the person purchasing for when they start their first trip. A year is not calculated according to calendar year, financial year or anything like that.
Annual travel insurance provides similar benefits as a single trip travel medical insurance such as medical, emergency medical evacuation, repatriation of remains, trip interruption, loss of checked luggage, accidental death and dismemberment, etc.
Restrictions
There are several restrictions to keep in mind while purchasing annual travel insurance:
-
Domestic Health Insurance
You must maintain a major medical health insurance policy while in your home country or be enrolled in government health programs, such as Medicare. If you don't have any major insurance while in your home country, you can't purchase annual multi trip travel insurance.
-
Trip Length
Each trip must be limited to 30 days or 45 days, depending upon the policy. It is rare to find a policy that provides annual coverage where each trip is longer than that. Therefore, if you are going to be traveling abroad for several months at a time, annual travel insurance is not appropriate. In such cases, you would need to purchase a single trip travel insurance policy.
-
Age
Many companies provide annual medical travel insurance only up to a certain age, such as 65 years of age. Therefore, older or elderly people may have difficulty getting annual travel insurance. Many companies just charge a flat amount per year for you and for your family, regardless of the age.
-
Trip Cancellation
There is no travel insurance annual plan that includes trip cancellation benefits. That is because you typically would not have planned all the trips in advance and paid for them in advance of purchasing annual travel insurance. Trip cancellation (and trip interruption) coverage amounts are determined by the total pre-paid non-refundable trip costs for a particular trip. Number of trips you take may vary. When insurance companies don't know in advance what trips you are going to take in the first place, they can't determine which ones you might cancel. Some plans offer optional trip cancellation coverage on a per-trip basis for additional premium or just for the first trip. Due to the fact that most annual travel insurance plans do not cover any trip cancellation and require you to have domestic health insurance, they are very low cost travel insurance plans.
-
Trip Interruption
Whenever provided, trip interruption coverage is usually a flat amount such as $5,000 and based on the actual trip cost for each trip. Also, it may only apply to a single trip during the annual coverage period.
-
Policy Maximum
Most annual trip insurance plans have one policy maximum and not various options to choose from, unlike single trip travel medical insurance.
Before buying annual travel insurance, you should get the quotes from multiple companies and contrast the benefits. Compare annual travel insurance plans prior to making a purchase. Fortunately, web sites like sibi.brokersnexus.com provide you the convenience of getting quotes from multiple companies at the same time and make side by side comparison easy so that you can choose the plan most suitable to you. It is extremely important not to look just at the price, but also at the coverage you are getting.
Can't find answers to your questions?
Ask our specialists - Licensed and experienced insurance professionals in the U.S.