In a post last week, I lamented about the requirement placed on travelers to purchase international travel insurance prior to visit countries such as Costa Rica. I felt this was an additional expense I did not want in addition to the other trip costs. It is not like I was trying to be cheap, well maybe I was, but I figured the money could be used to travel locally instead of being used for insurance. Especially, if the insurance company plans began at six months. I believe my post was a bit premature.
After posting the article, I received immediate responses in my email and one comment on the post itself giving me other options. The traveler insurance that stuck out to me was from Trawick International. Trawick International was founded in 1998 as a company providing insurance to students, to include those traveling abroad. The company has added trip cancellation and interruption coverage, as well as international travel insurance, to its previous products. Trawick’s travel insurance programs are designed for those traveling to the United States of America (USA), individuals traveling abroad, United States (US) citizens who are traveling in the USA and non US citizens traveling from their home country but not visiting the USA. Quite the options, right?
I went to Trawick International’s website to get a travel insurance quote. The website was simple enough as it had only three sections. In the first section, I selected exactly what I was looking for, travel medical plans.
The next section was the “tell us about your trip” section. In this section, I was honest about my origin (USA) and destination (Costa Rica). On the other hand, I put in dates completely different from those of my proposed trip.
The final section, before getting the quote, was “tell us about your travelers”. I selected one traveler, put in a birthday “near” mine (40 to be on the safe side), input a roundabout travel cost ($1200) and selected my state.
The seven day quote nearly knocked me out of my chair. This is what I saw…
$47 USD! Can you believe a seven day travel insurance quote is that cheap? I was over the moon after seeing those numbers. The quote included $25,000 USD in accidental death and dismemberment, something I hope my family would not have to use, and a maximum trip delay of up to $2000 USD.
The included a lot of coverages, most of which are covered by other insurances or airlines. These included baggage delay, rental car and airline ticket change. I was most interested in the following trip delay verbiage: “$2,000 USD includes quarantine accommodations and lodging expenses.
Final Word
Trawick International’s travel medical plans are a game changer. As of last week, I had essentially written off any chance of taking a trip to Central America, yet here we are. I may be late to party in just learning about Trawick, but I would rather learn something later than to never know about it.
Who is ready to travel to Central America?!
