BC: 1-800-681-6677
Alberta: 1-800-693-6862

Travel Insurance

I’ll admit it – I used to think people who bought travel insurance were suckers (when I thought about insurance at all).

It just didn’t make sense to me – If I hit Seattle for a weekend and ate some bad seafood or broke my leg, I figured my provincial medical coverage would kick in and cover my medical bills. Besides, if I did have to visit a hospital how expensive could it be?

Turns out – it could be quite a bit… B.C. pays just $75 a day for out-of-province emergency in-patient hospital care. Sounds ok, until you learn that the average cost for this in the U.S often exceeds $1000 a day and can be as high as $10,000 a day in intensive care (or so the BC gov’t website says).*

Besides hospital room costs, you might get hit with charges for out-of-province ambulance trips, (one U.S. ambulance claim was recently made for $2,200) x-rays, medications, and emergency dental issues, plus the cost of having to make changes to travel arrangements due to an emergency.

You’ve probably heard that some credit cards will offer limited coverage in this area. I just did a few minutes of ‘Official Google Researching’ for you and found this article about whether credit card travel insurance is enough: http://canada.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-travel-insurance-not-enough-1278.php Good to know, right?

So who needs travel insurance? You do, if you’re travelling out of your home province – either for day-trips over the border, or for 1 week all-inclusive stays in sunny locales, or extended trips visiting friends and family.

If you make a couple of trips a year, look into an annual policy that allows an unlimited amount of trips within the year. You pay for it once, save yourself repeated trips to your Insurance Agent and save some dough in the process! Makes sense right? Right.

The coverage available from the Insurance Services Department of London Drugs is among the best available in the country.

Getting a quote and understanding your coverages and options takes just a few minutes. Start by visiting www.ldinsurance.ca, going to one of our 17 Insurance departments, or by calling 1-800-681-6677.

And relax, getting a quote does not obligate you to buy… Educate yourself, and be prepared!