You're listening to a CNA podcast. Welcome to the Money Talks podcast. I'm Andrea Heng. Now, how many of us have booked travel plans? In advance, of course, because we want to lock in the best deal, only to remember this one important thing to book at the very last minute because we often overlook it. I'm talking about travel insurance. Why is it so low on our priority list when we are excited about our
travel plans? What happens when we leave it to the night before we fly or worse, when we are right there in the boarding room waiting for our flight? What's the benefit of buying travel insurance early then? Well, I'm gonna get some help in answering these questions. Sherri Wang is with me. She is the co-founder of Planner B. Hi Sherry.
Hi Andrea, thank you for having me today.
It's our pleasure, but confession from you first, Sherry, have you ever left travel insurance to the very last minute?
I would say definitely once or twice it has happened to me like we care about other people and they're like, oh dear, I forgot by myself. Oh,
so it's yours was because you weren't complacent, you were just taking care of other people first. Yeah, and I
was like, 00 dear, I forgot about mine. I thought it it was ongoing and I had to check and I always have this paranoia because of the work and I was like, OK, actually I think I should do a double check and true enough, thankfully I checked before we bought because otherwise it will be very challenging getting any coverage because usually they don't allow you to buy any coverage the moment you board your plane. Oh,
that's true. I must have been quite lucky that one time that I did it right before takeoff. OK, so when you do pick travel insurance, Sherry, what are your go to? Do you hit the basic one or do you go max like all the way?
We definitely don't go for the basic one. That's because most of the time they have shifted down the prices to provide you with a low-cost travel insurance, but with a lot of things excluded and that's the last thing you want. You want to get coverage, you
don't want to be subpar about that. So we often look for at least the mid-tier or the higher tier plans, depending on any activities that you will be doing, for example, skiing, snowboarding, then you might want to just get the better coverage for those. Trips and never depend on the free credit card ones. Oh, why is that? Those are given free for a reason. They are very limited in coverage. They would pretty much do nothing if there is an emergency. If there is
a medical emergency overseas that could cost easily 100,000. Giving you 50,000 free is not going to really solve the entire problem actually.
That's true. Have you ever had to take out like a travel insurance policy in those situations and like what's the most extreme situation you've had to make a claim
for pre-existing. Conditions are not covered in almost all travel insurance policies with the exception of a few. If the person does get like a heart attack and he's already with that condition prior to that travel, that is when we have to tell people the bad news. Yeah, but if they're covered under their own medical insurance in Singapore, we could always activate that for those situations.
OK, what about you? What have you personally faced an extreme situation where you've had to take out this travel insurance claim? Unfortunately,
we haven't really had Too many claims rejected before, but in that situation that I've mentioned to you, that unfortunately was the case. Thankfully he got most of his medical bills covered under the integrated shield plan that he has in Singapore, but the evacuation from where he was to Singapore was something we could not cover, which would otherwise be if the travel insurance was covering something that's non preexisting. OK,
we'll get into the nitty gritty of that. I'm just wondering also because I realized that I have a lot of friends who are into snowboarding. All of a sudden like they're going to Japan to do it. I know the yen dropping as well. So I'm just wondering about the trends, whether you can tell us about the kinds of trends in terms of travel insurance lately. What are you seeing more or less of.
Yeah, I think before COVID definitely people are less aware of the importance of travel insurance. Post COVID we do see a huge, a much bigger intake on even short trips. Yeah, however, I think people are just more aware. aware that there are trip cancellations that can happen and that is something that we see a lot more claims on because you never know if you fall sick and
you're unfit to travel. And the good thing is if you actually do get coverage while the best practice is to buy the travel insurance when you book your flight, so you won't forget and then if anything happens that result in like um inability to travel, for example, family emergency, medical emergency, your own medical emergencies then you could actually just Activate that to reimburse you for the losses that you
could not get refund on. That would probably be one of the biggest awareness that people have now because COVID has resulted in a lot of cancellations of that trip. So I think that's a clause that people weren't aware of and now they are, but you have to buy your travel insurance at least 7 days before the departure, otherwise that won't be possible.
Now, when I shop around for travel insurance, I tend to go for the cheapest one, which you told us what not to do, right, we should avoid that. But what about shorter trips? I'm going for a couple of days to JB, KL, maybe Malacca, something that's not too far away, but also you are overseas still in a different country. So we feel like, I don't think anything is going to happen. I'll just buy the cheapest one, I should be good. What's your take on that?
Possibly OK. So the way we see it is the amount of risk that you are taking. What would the risk cost? So in Malacca, I assume it could be a drive there, right? The risk of transporting a person that's sick back, how much would that cost? If I'm sick, would the hospitals there be more expensive than the ones in Singapore? If the answer is that the cost is pretty low, then maybe the basic plan would help you sufficiently in those situations, but I wouldn't look at the length of the trip alone.
I would look at the cost of living in that country. Yeah, because if we Go to Switzerland and then we end up in a ski accident. The cost of medical bills in Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore are notoriously expensive and the US. So in those four places, the bills are no joke. It will be a very long trip back home, then I would go for a higher tier plan,
long and painful, not just for the person but for the pocket as well. Yeah. OK, so you talked about how at least At least a week before your trip, it's the best time to book your travel insurance, otherwise when you book your flight, correct? Can you do it on the plane if you forget what kind of situation would be OK for us to like, oh, I forgot I'm going to book it now and we're right at the boarding gate and we're like, ah,
yes, strictly speaking you can, you can buy it before the flight, the insurance will still be honored, but the moment you leave the country just bother buying it because it will be voided anyway. But there is one insurer though last year they have launched a new feature where you could buy if you're one day into the trip. Yeah, so that's like good for people who forgot, but remember just in time, maybe they
got off the flight and they immediately buy it. There are some exclusions on certain situations, but it's better than nothing. It
is, it is better than no. Some coverage is better than none. So you can understand how shopping for travel insurance can be. A mind boggling experience. It's overwhelming. I mean, we're browsing online through a confusing menu of so many different tiers as you said, and then there are different insurers as well. How do we navigate that? What are the top three things we need to think about when we are shopping for a travel insurance plan?
Yeah, I've looked at the database. I think we have something like 40 options in the system, so we have to nail it down, streamline the features down to the options down to about 6 for people to choose from, things that we look out for by ranking them, it's just like shopping for clothes, you filter them out. First, are there dangerous activities or adventurous activities that the person is doing, then that would
be a very easy filter. If it's a no then you could go for options that don't cover those and save costs, right? The one important thing that we look out for that we think In all situations should be covered is medical evacuation. If that is anything under 1 million, we tend to exclude those two because we've seen the cost of flight from Australia being like a 250 million just to come back.
If you go to the mountains like you like trekking, there is an additional step getting the person down the mountain. So that will cost even more. And apart from the cost of living in that country, if that place is more rural, because there is just the lack of equipment and facilities. that could actually even cost even more. So that would be something that we look out for at least 1 million and then we'll ask people, do you care about your belongings being stolen and stuff like that? Do you
carry expensive stuff? So if that is correct, then those are things that you could filter out based on your own personalization and then you'll see that there will be a few options left and then you could just filter from there. Lastly, of course, we do have internal data on the claims experience for some insurers, so we have banned. Certain insurers from being in the list because they have bad claims experience that unreasonable.
That's a very big thing for claimants. OK, talk to me about that.
The claims experience is most important, but thankfully maybe if you're not experienced with that means you've been lucky so far, right? But we know, so we're like, OK, this is good or upfront, but this is not very good at the back for some reason, we will be upfront.
What constitutes a smooth claims
experience? The time frame that understandably be high volumes at certain times we can manage. That with the insurer, but if they're excluding claims that are unreasonable for strange reasons, then we will highlight it to our customers in advance to say, hey, the claims experience has been unreasonably bad, you might want to exclude these options. So
if it takes too long for a claim to be processed,
or if they are rejecting it unreasonable basis. OK,
interesting. I didn't know that there was a thing. So my dad is a business traveler, he's overseas as we speak. Right now, what kind of special inclusions do we need to look out for in a holiday travel insurance plan versus a business travel insurance plan?
Is he covered under a company or he did buy it himself?
He's covered under the company, but he does have the freedom to choose what he wants. So he chose to do an annual one. So I suppose that's one of the tips I would offer for someone who's a business traveler, or what else would you say should be included for a business traveler.
So we do manage business. travels and personal travels, they can be different in a very specific way. The coverage are generally the same, but there is a clause where it says if this is a plan made for business travels only, if you extend your trip, which people tend to do prior or after,
there is no coverage for that period. So if you are planning to go to say Australia for a work trip and you would like to extend it to see the place for another 3 days, maybe just a weekend, you have to buy a travel insurance for the end. Entire trip yourself to be covered for that 3 days. You can't just buy the 3 days.
So I have to plan ahead. I know I have to do this before I leave as well,
because the business travel insurance are often catering only for business travel days. The moment that engagement ends, even though you have not returned to Singapore and you have extended it on your own personal time, the coverage ends.
OK. So now I wanted to talk about the Ts and C's, the fine prints which nobody likes to read. I'm going to ask you for a favor here and give us maybe 3 things that we should pick out from the Ts and C's that we need to pay attention to.
OK, the number 11 would be that if because of trip cancellations, which is a high number of claims happening for that, just be sure that when you're buying the policy, if you are looking for a possibility of that claim, there is either a 30 days, 7 day or sometimes a 5 day waiting period. It can be as short as 3 if I remember. Correctly, but they do vary quite a bit from 30
to 3 days. So if you're looking to get your trip cancellations, postponing your trip, those fees covered and you're like maybe on the 5th day from your travel date, you might want to look for a policy that is with an exclusion of 3 days instead of the 130 days, then you're not really helping yourself in that situation. That's one fine print. The second one, we see a lot of tests in certain countries in the world, especially Snatch and phones and stuff.
There are some plans, especially the credit card ones that do not cover loss of mobile phones specifically. So that would be another cost. And then lastly, I think the pre-existing would be a big one. Although there are some plans that cover pre-existing, the limits are still pretty low
because it's the type of pre-existing condition you have at what stage you're at these sorts of things, right?
OK. And maybe one last one would be people with pets now, many people with pets, your furry babies might be in a boarding home hotel if there. Some delay while you're overseas, you'll have to extend the boarding period that could be covered too for some policies.
OK, so I want to talk now about those unforeseen circumstances you've mentioned a few of them, right, which is really what travel insurance is all about. It's supposed to help us in need when these situations arise. Accidents happen, we get injured, we fall ill, but how do we activate our travel insurance in these situations? When does it kick in and what does it kick in for in those situations?
In your situation, If that happens again, hopefully not, there is usually a 24 hour hotline. OK, you call that, they will arrange for evacuation. That's what I mean like the evacuation could also be from natural disasters and that is important and they will arrange, I suppose at that point a batch of people to come back to Singapore at the same time.
That would be hyper-emergency. If it's a smaller thing like a flu, influenza A that's happening everywhere, you could just see the doctor for you first and then you have to pay for the bills and then the reimbursement comes when you come back. Singapore in between, if it's a hospital stay, in all policies they do indicate that you will have to pay for the bills first.
I guess it's because there's no shared system.
Yes, and they are unable to assess the claim until the discharge happens because the doctors will have to write like a discharge report and then they will assess the claim. So they will require people to pay for it first, but these bills could be very expensive. But you could also activate with that same hotline to tell the insurer this is happening and they can do a pre-assessment.
And first, some hospitals would be nice enough to say, OK, we've got some sort of like agreement with the insurer, we could waive off a little bit of your deposit or something like that, then that could help with the financial cash flow. So travel insurance could help with that. Wow,
OK, that's great to know. What about when a political crisis unfolds in a country, immediately I'm thinking about South Korea. We actually knew some people who were in Seoul at the time of these protests and all that, they weren't violent but it's still an uncomfortable. situation to be in, not the kind of situation you want to be when you're on holiday. How might travel insurance help us get us to safety perhaps. Is that something that is covered?
Yes, actually, and I would say most of the insurance policies in Singapore that would cover that situation if you have not left Singapore as well. OK, so if you need to cancel those plans because there is like riots or civil unrest that could be covered under the trip cancellation clause provided you buy at least say 7 days prior. To leaving and prior to the event happening. If the event has already been known, then most class would be known events are not covered,
right? In this example, it would be me wanting to go to a war zone where something's already happening, a travel insurance will not cover me there.
But in that situation that happened at that point with Korea, if you had bought your travel insurance prior to that event happening, then you could actually apply for a cancellation stating that there is now Unrest and you want to cancel those plans and you could make a claim on that. What about evacuations? Yeah, if you're already there, they will make an assessment whether the flights are affected and stuff. If it's not, then
there's no claim to be made. Yeah of course thankfully in that situation wasn't the case, yeah.
I just want to go back to the natural disaster bit here. I know there are clauses in many insurance plans, not just travel insurance, but just insurance in general, about acts of God. Now the thing is natural disasters. are acts of God if you want to frame it that way. So are there limitations there to travel insurance when it comes to these natural disasters that are acts of God?
Perhaps another clause we should look out for. There are some that don't cover acts of God and actually most do. Yeah, so that's fine. Alright. Again, if it's a known event and you're just like, hey, I want to go look at the volcano, then
no. But what about relief workers? So after the earthquake in Nepal. My husband went back a month later to help with relief work. Are there insurers that are willing to cover relief workers
perhaps that would be quite a standalone situation, it would be a special request for coverage. Yeah, but it is underwritten as the usual travel insurance. Yeah, it is possible, but very unlikely. There are people who go on competitions now with the marathon and the triathletes. Those are not covered when You are in that situation because the common exclusion would be that if you're competing in any competition, that will not be covered.
Right? So what insurance can I get though if I'm an athlete? Clearly I'm not, but you have to
get your own medical insurance, those coverage would be limited to whatever that covers.
But you have to be a professional to do it. I mean,
as non-professionals not covered and if you go tracking above a certain limit, there are some insurers. That they kept it at 3000, 5000. I think the highest we've seen might be 6. Anything higher, you're on your own. Sherry,
I feel like the number one tip from you right now to cover all of this that we've talked about, get it done early. I will promise not to be a last minute anymore after this. Thanks for sharing your tips.
Thank you, Andrea.
So let's not all be complacent about travel insurance, especially after this episode. Uh, if you've got any comments or questions, we welcome them as always. You can head on over to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts as well, and leave us a message. You can also leave us a rating if you enjoyed this conversation. I carried it to the team, Christina Robert, Tiffany Ang, Junaini Johari, Joanne Chan, Hanida Amin, and Saa Wind. This has been the Money Talks podcast. Thank you for listening.
I'm Andrea Heng signing off.