Planning a trip to 2 countries. Want to buy travel insurance for the leg of the trip taking place in the second country, after the first.
As far as I understand, this should be fine, I specify the dates of the trip to the insurance company from the day I arrive in the 2nd country to the day I leave it and if need be I’ll be able provide proof that I was there (boarding passes, tickets, passport stamps) if needing to make a claim. I’d also buy the insurance prior to leaving my home country, which I know is important. It all sounds theoretically fine but I’m just worried there’s going to be some unexpected gotcha in doing this.
Obviously this will depend on the fine print of my specific chosen insurance and I’m reading through all 100+ pages of it, but nevertheless the ability for this to somehow contravene something in a counterintuitive or unexpected manner even if I don’t see it explicitly spelled out worries me given how tricky insurance companies can be and I wondered if this was something generally known to be a problem.
UPDATE: called the insurance company I was considering. They said there was no problem with this, as long as I bought the insurance prior to leaving my home country, which was always the plan anyway. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter if the ‘journey’ as they define it begins after departing from a different country to my home country.
Most insurance policies will require that the insured trip begins in your home country. (Not that you bought it there) There was a news story about this recently.
Can you not extend your initial insurance? I would really recommend having a chat with a person at one of the insurance companies.
Seconding having a chat with a rep and getting a name or document of some sort. I’m definitely outside your country, and things 100% work differently with insurance where I’m at, but even if you read in plain text “this scenario will be covered” unless you’ve got some documentation that your specific case is covered the insurance company can pull whatever kind of legal whoopty-doo they want (and you can’t afford to fight) to say it’s not covered. Call someone up, get their supervisor to tell you your claim will be taken care of, and ask for them when it’s not. Otherwise, you’re one person against an entire company that only exists because it pays out as little as possible.
I’m going to put this in an update as well but, the insurer said it was fine, the only effect they could foresee it having was if they could somehow trace back something I claim for to events happening in the first country visited, for example, if you have a medical problem in the 1st country, obviously they won’t cover it, but if you have to pay for follow up medical services in country 2 for the same problem that started in country 1, they also won’t cover that either. Otherwise though, not a problem where you departed from as long as you bought the insurance before leaving your home country.
Huh, that’s supprisingly generous of them!
I may be guilty of assuming things works the same everywhere
Thank you. I guess such a chat would be in order. That’s a shame. So far the full contract is only taking pains to point out that the insurance has to be purchased before we leave our home country but I’m definitely concerned that there is also a hidden requirement to begin the journey by departing the home country.