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Travel Insurance, Why?

5:37:00 PM


All the while before I know about travel insurance, I never thought of any unforeseen event or incident that might be waiting for me during my trip in overseas. Honestly, I don't think that it would be so worth it until I've done a few claims on a few trips of mine.

Back in 2011, I didn't even bother to care about travel insurance for my first self-guided 2 weeks trip to Taiwan, or I should say that I don't even know it exists :D I learned about travel insurance from my parents during our family trip to New Zealand in 2013, by then I starting to understand why my parents wanted to be insured during the trip.


I came to know that it wasn't expensive buying this insurance, if we could pay so much for a leisure trip, why not include just a little more to get yourself insured right. I try to influence my friends as much as I can because many of us wanted to have our self-arranged tour rather than just following travel agency's tour package which has already included the insurance. We did all the flight, hotel booking by ourselves, happily arranging our own itinerary, and perhaps, just like me, totally ignore about what kind of emergency might happen.

Why do I need travel insurance?
A thousand and one mishaps can occur when you are traveling, flight delays, loss of luggage, illness, accidents.. the list goes on. When you are traveling, whether on business or leisure, the last thing you want is to be left stranded and helpless far away from home. The result could be a financial disaster.



Source : MSIG Malaysia

There will be some discount if you buy it yourself from the insurance agency. I used to buy from MSIG, so taking it as an example here, but you can find out a lot more other agency.

Buy the insurance as soon as after purchasing your flight ticket, the insurance will cover the cost of the trip if you failed to go for the trip due to some serious illness or other emergency.

My First Claim :

My first claim happen in July 2015, during my trip to Bali, Indonesia, there was this Mt. Rinjani volcano eruption causes a mess in Ngurah Rai International Airport. Hundreds of flight cancelled due to the volcanic ash, and we were stranded there for another 2 extra nights as the earliest flight available was 2 days later. Extra money spent for transportation, accommodation etc under unexpected circumstances, I remember we were all penniless, lucky to have CIMB ATM card LOL.

After coming back to Malaysia, we asked for a delay/cancel flight letter explanation from the airlines representative as a proof to submit for the claim. Guess what, a week later after my claim submitted, I received an email saying that insurance compensate it as travel delay of 48 hours with a sum of MYR 1600. It literally covers all the cost of my trip to Bali xD

My Second Claim :

This claim happen in October 2015, during my trip to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, I've got a very serious food allergic and immediate treatment is needed. In my past 26 years, I never experience any food allergy before, even when I traveled to country like India, Nepal, taking streets food whenever I feel like it, never a single time I had food allergy, but turns out I had a serious one in Vietnam. Day 1 in Ho Chi Minh, visited a hospital at 12 midnight, day 2 thinking of getting better, it comes back again at night and I visited another hospital. It didn't get any better so I went to another hospital AGAIN on day 3. With all the emergency treatment I had, couldn't imagine if I haven't got travel insurance T.T

Best part about medical claim is that you get to claim follow-up treatment in Malaysia up to 45 days after your return to Malaysia. Therefore, my total claim MYR 1453.67 reimburse within 2 weeks.

My Third Claim :

Baggage damage claim in March 2016, my trip to Seoul, Korea. Approval of this claim was out of my expectation, because I found out about the damage after arriving home and didn't have any report from airlines. I don't even have the receipt of my luggage. I emailed MSIG and they asked to fill in a claim form, attached together with any evident available such as airlines report, receipt etc. What I attached was a picture of my damage luggage with tag on it and my baggage tag. I got a claim of MYR 219.10 after being calculated with depreciation 10% each applied based on every year life span.

I had my first baggage damage claim from Malaysia Airlines, they compensate me with a brand new luggage as the damage couldn't be repair anymore. Flying with premium airlines, they handled well with damage/missing baggage, but if with budget airlines, you can only be compensate if you have your own insurance.

Important things to keep with you :



1) Boarding pass -  it has details such as flight number, date, and name. This is the only proof that can be used to prove that you are truly on board that particular flight because booking ticket isn't strong enough to proved you were on board.



2) Baggage Tag - this is the identification number of your luggage on that particular flight, therefore it is important to have your luggage tagged under your OWN name. Many don't bother about these tags.



3) Receipts - keep all the receipts that you intend to claim, just like my hospital medical treatment receipts and pharmacy receipts.

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10 comments

  1. Never ever try to save by not buying any travel insurance. It really helps when travel. Great information dear! Many need to know how important of insurance.

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  2. I always buy travel insurance before travel. Touch wood never claim it before :)

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  3. Wow thanks for your great sharing and experience! :D

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  4. Wow, this is very useful post. Bookmarking it for safekeeping. I have bought travel insurance once when I traveled to Taiwan. But I didn't know to what extent the coverage is.

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  5. Wow u definitely experience quite a bit of erm travel insurance claims... BUt u're a frequent traveller la. Good tips! Good to know of these info!

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  6. Thanks for sharing my dear! This is so useful for me to remember to include travel insurance for any vacation especially with your own experience! Thanks so much :))

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  7. wow... this is eye opening... now I should buy travel insurance.. hehehe...I never thought of it as important..thanks for the share

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  8. insurance are always important, you never know what may happen in the future.

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  9. goood insurance is A MUST !! You are very great traveller memang kena bijak if not kena tipu. huhu..

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  10. Interesting article. I;ve always stinge on travel insurance. Perhaps it's time to start spending on insurance.

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