What’s new at Wells Gray Tours? Our insurance provider, that’s what!
Whether you are travelling for a few days or a few weeks in your home province or internationally, there’s no denying the fact that travel insurance is a critical item when planning your trip. Equally as important, is to understand the type of coverage you are purchasing and what it offers; trip cancellation and interruption, lost luggage, and medical insurance are some of the most common options available.
In March of this year I wrote an overview blog about travel insurance and covered the following topics:
- Reasons to buy travel insurance
- Types of travel insurance
- Credit Card travel insurance
This blog is available in our blog archives at https://www.wellsgraytours.com/travel-insurance-an-essential-item-for-smart-travellers/
This article, however, is about Travel Guard, the new insurance provider that Wells Gray Tours is now using. Beginning in August of 2015, Wells Gray Tours began offering travel insurance through Travel Guard. Travel Guard has more than 25 years in the business of travel insurance and is underwritten by the American International Group (AIG). Travel Guard operates a global network of travel and emergency assistance services that are available to help you 24/7 by simply calling the number provided with your policy. This means that during an emergency, help is standing by to answer your questions and get your claim handled quickly and professionally. Knowing there is someone there for you to speak with personally is one less stress to deal with.
Travel Guard provides all the typical coverages that we think of when we think about travel insurance; trip cancellation, trip interruption or delay, lost baggage and some medical expenses. New with this coverage, is a pre-existing medical condition exclusion waiver. In the travel insurance world, “pre-existing conditions” are a hot topic. Individuals often feel they are no longer able to travel due to a pre-existing condition, but that may not be the case. If you or a loved one has a pre-existing condition, Travel Guard offers a pre-existing condition waiver.
With this new Travel Guard insurance policy, if you are medically able to travel at the time the tour is initially booked, you have a couple of options for insurance. You can now buy insurance on your initial deposit and/or on your final payment amount. If you do decide to purchase the insurance on your deposit, this is where the pre-existing condition waiver comes into play. When insurance is purchased at the time of final payment after also having purchased it at the time of deposit, the pre-existing condition waiver still applies. However, if you decide not to purchase the insurance at final payment, even after you have done so with the deposit, the waiver is then null and void for the balance of the tour fare.
As with all insurance, it is important to read all the information provided by the insurance company and make sure you understand the policy wording. For your convenience I have included a link to our new policy, https://www.wellsgraytours.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Insurance-PDF.pdf
Written by: Joan Niemeier
