Law Union & Rock Urges Travelers To Buy Travel Insurance

“With as little as N3500, travellers can purchase a travel insurance policy to cover medical expenses, trip cancellation, lost luggage, flight accident and other losses incurred while traveling abroad to the tune of $50,000 or N23.5 million”, according to the Executive Director, Law Union and Rock Insurance Plc, Mr. Supo Sogelola.
He made this known while sensitizing the public on the company’s LUR Travel Insurance policy in Lagos.
He said: “Our travel insurance policy is designed to reduce the risk associated with unexpected event during international travel resulting to Medical Expenses and Hospitalization Abroad, Emergency Medical Evacuation, Emergency Dental Care, Repatriation of Mortal Remains, Repatriation of family member travelling with the insured, Emergency Return Home Following Death of a close Relative, Travel of One, Immediate Family Member and lot more.
Speaking on the importance of travel insurance, he said now that ban has been lifted on local travel, and with international flights coming back gradually, Nigerians should embrace the policy to reduce the risk associated with unexpected events while travelling.
“We have a partnership with reliable and experienced insurer –Mapfre Asistencia. The partner is a globally respected company in travel insurance by all Schengen countries and also worldwide. Law Union and Rock is an A-rated insurer, with Credit Paying Ability and Stable outlook, strong financial stability; seamless service delivery through our ICT infrastructure; and timely response in case of eventuality/loss with empathy”.
The requirement for travel insurance include Number of beneficiaries; Destination geographical zone; Age/Date of birth of the insured; Period of cover; Copy of Passport Data page; Copy of flight booking; Traveller Phone & Email; and Next of Kin Phone & Email. In the event of a loss, an insured person can be compensated through direct payment to the hospital or refund by cheque or direct bank transfer to the insured or the next of kin.
He explained further that the policy is available for a family of four on an international trip at just N22,000. This particular policy cost the family about N7000 per individual.
“As we speak not many people are knowledgable about travel insurance but it is so important that you cannot over emphasise it. You can have an annual policy or a trip policy which can be two weeks or for the numbers of days you want to be in an international destination. Mostly people don’t consider unexpected events, but when it happens it is usually a very difficult and a bad one. If you are setting your foot on a plane to go out of the country, you should have insurance.
‘In one of the cases that we have witnessed, one of our customers travelled with his wife and two children for a three weeks’ vacation to the United States and five days after they got there, his daughter developed temperature and they thought it was a simple thing. Before they knew it, she was moved to the Intensive Care Unit. The child spent five days in the hospital and the bill came to $32,000 which was over N11 million at the time. Fortunately for the client, he had LUR Travel Insurance policy in place and the bill was fully paid.
“From the minute the insured’s child was admitted, the family were called a minimum 3 times daily and offered every option to ensure a smooth and convenient experience. A consultant was sent to the insured’s house in US and an ambulance sent at our cost. This is the best support you can get when you are on holiday. How do you get $32000 to pay for what you didn’t plan? It is unfortunate that people are not taking advantage of insurance as much as they should. Most of the products are not expensive and now that there is lift on ban on local and international travel, travellers should take advantage of the policy”, he added.
“For our local travel insurance policy, we have our customer care contact for the insured to contact us and we will attend to him/her. For worldwide travel insurance policy, we have international contact numbers of our partners who will respond to their claim notification immediately. Our claim process will commence and claim payment depend on the response of the customer. We don’t delay in obligation.
He said the company’s LUR Travel Insurance for local travel policy costs as low as N500 to N1500 per annum, with benefits up to N1 million naira according to risks covered. In the end, it pays to get travel insurance, to protect one from unplanned losses while travelling.