International holidays are when you head for cooler climes and longer durations. Domestic holidays can be anything from a weekend getaway to a pilgrimage or attending multiple, obligatory family and religious functions. Or of course, work travel. All these can be round-the-year multiple trips.

Well-designed and packaged policies are available for domestic travel from almost every general insurance company. You can buy them easily online even for single trips, for individuals, families or groups and for a range of sums insured. A handy example is a ₹1-lakh cover for the most apparent risk while travelling, namely emergency hospitalisation due to sudden illness or an accident.

Ticket loss cover

It also covers the loss of tickets up to the value of the sum insured, accommodation charges for trip delays subject to limits, funds for your family members to travel and assist you amounting to ₹50,000, cost of tickets for missed departures, and personal liability at a much higher coverage of ₹5 lakh.

There are clauses that cover medical evacuation costs and transportation of mortal remains as well. Such a policy for about a month for one person would cost about ₹1,500. We travel more often for work and here an annual policy covering multiple trips is more efficient as you can just renew it once a year.

Packaged policies

Here is an interesting tip regarding domestic air travel and packaged personal accident policies. When you book your flight ticket online you have the option of buying a personal accident policy for about ₹100 or ₹150 more. Looks attractive and easy to buy. It’s a good option, better than not being insured.

But if you are a frequent traveller, just buy an annual personal accident policy. A ₹10-lakh policy will cost barely ₹2,000 or so and the coverage is better.

The policy, bundled with the ticket, covers you only for that journey, even if it’s a morning-evening trip. Sometimes the cover is from home to home or till the end of that calendar month (30 days in some policies), whichever is earlier.

The annual policy has wider coverage for a full year, the cost works out better and you can cover all your family members with just one annual renewal!

And remember, all PA policies are benefit policies and you can claim your accident treatment expenses under your hospitalisation policy while claiming the applicable benefit in full from your PA policy.

(The writer is a business journalist specialising in insurance & corporate history)

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