A winter vacation is a great way for the whole family to rest and reconnect, hopefully far away from the snow and ice that plague our friends back home. Before you finalize your vacation travel booking, there’s one more thing we’d like you to think about before you go.

You don’t want your winter holiday in the sun to be memorable for all the wrong reasons. Be sure to check out this guide to travel health insurance for the whole family.

It’s Easier Than You Think

When people consider buying travel health insurance, they think it may be on par with the process involved to buy life insurance or other insurance products. Then they decide that’s way too much work for a week away and choose to forego travel insurance.

Buying travel insurance doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out process. In fact, you can easily fill out most application forms for travel insurance online in a matter of minutes. If you need more information or have any questions about the differences between policies, an insurance broker can help you understand what policy best suits your family’s needs.

You will often have the option to tack on travel insurance as part of a vacation package, but please give this idea a second thought. Travel agents are very knowledgeable professionals when it comes to finding the right vacation destination at the right price for your family. However, travel agents are not insurance professionals.

Pre-Existing Conditions and Travel Insurance

Remember when we said that buying travel insurance is easy, and there’s rarely much paperwork involved? That’s not necessarily true if you are travelling with a pre-existing condition like asthma, diabetes or heart disease. We’ll give it to you straight: if you have a health condition, travel insurance is going to be more expensive for you than for those who do not.

Because travel insurance is more expensive when you have a pre-existing condition, you may be tempted to leave those details out when completing your application. Don’t. It’s fraud, and falsifying your application form voids your insurance policy. If you have voided your policy by providing false information, you could find yourself without coverage for something completely unrelated to your pre-existing condition.

That means if you get into a car accident while on vacation, you could be on the hook for treatment because you didn’t tell your insurance company about your blood pressure medication. This is certainly a case where it pays to be honest!

Travel Insurance is Important at Every Age

When most people think about travellers who need health insurance, the famous Canadian snowbirds heading south to Florida every winter usually come to mind.

It’s true that, statistically, the longer you spend out of the country and the older you are, the more likely it is that you will need to make a claim against your travel insurance. But that doesn’t mean that younger travellers can go without travel insurance.

Consider what happened when one young Canadian traveller took a nasty spill on a bicycle while far from home. Travel insurance saved him from financial difficulties in a big way.

Medical expenses? $22,727.50.

Travel insurance to cover his medical needs on vacation? $63.

From a March Break getaway to your cousin’s destination wedding, travel insurance can protect the hard-earned dollars you spent on your holiday and make sure your family is covered in the event of an accident or medical emergency. It’s a good deal at every age.

One Policy Can Cover the Whole Year’s Travel

It’s easy to get tunnel vision when you’re planning a holiday. You keep track of the passports, the flight numbers, figure out the parking situation at the airport and you buy travel insurance for this trip, and this trip only, because you simply don’t have the time to think about anything else.

But slow your roll!

If you are going to take any more trips at all this year, including a hop over the border for some shopping, or even to visit family in another Canadian province, you have more options to consider. A multi-trip travel insurance policy can help cover all of the trips your family takes in a single 12-month period.

Insure Every Trip

Trips out of the country, or even within the country, are a lot less fun when dealing with an illness or accident. Travel insurance can help make sure the financial elements of a vacation emergency are under control, so you can focus on getting back to the fun. Contact us today to learn more about your travel insurance coverage options.