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With life insurance, the insured is transferring the risk of death on to the insurer. It is not always the case that the insured is insuring their own life. Therefore there are three parties in a life insurance contract, the insurer, the insured person, and the owner of the policy. The other vitally important party is the beneficiary; this is the person who receives the insurance money if the insured’s death does occur. One or more of these parties could be the same person, for example, if I insure my own life and make my spouse the beneficiary, then I am the insured and the owner. Likewise, if my wife insures my life and makes herself the beneficiary, then she is the owner and the beneficiary.

An important concept in this regard is insurable interest. You must have what is known as an insurable interest in the life of the person you are insuring. Believe it or not there was a practice in the nineteenth century whereby people would take out speculative insurance policies on the life of another.

For example, if I knew you were going on a dangerous voyage, I might take out a life insurance policy on you in the hope that you wouldn’t make it and I would get a big payout. These days you cannot insure anybody’s life. You must show that you have an interest in that person being alive. You are presumed always to have an interest in the life of your spouse and guardians, if you are a minor, but all other relationships will have to prove the insurable interest. If employers have a very highly valued employee, or sports teams have a star player, or a famous actor contracts to make a film, their employers will be able to insure their lives.

Most life insurance policies will have a suicide clause stating that if the insured commits suicide, usually within a period of two years, the policy will not pay out. There is also a contest period. This will also be approximately two years and if the insured dies within this period, the insurance company has greater rights to investigate the death before deciding whether or not to pay out.

The value of the insurance policy will be subject to the principle of insurable interest also. For example, if your spouse provides you with $10,000 per year in support, you probably will not be able to take a $50 million insurance policy on their life. The premium will be calculated based on the amount to be paid out and the assessed risk of the insured’s death

Joseph Kenny is the webmaster of the insurance site http://www.insure121.com/ where you will find information, news and links to the leading providers of insurance in the UK. If you found this article interesting you may find more articles of the same nature in the insurance guide located on site.

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As a past travel professional, I heard many, and I stress many horror stories about travellers that didn’t take travel insurance to protect their well-being and vacation investment!

Nothing was worse than getting that phone call from our travel tour operator telling me that our clients had an unfortunate accident, or suddenly became ill, and they did not have travel medical, and not enough money to cover their medical bills at destination, or enough credit on their card to purchase a one-way flight home.

All these incidences were avoidable if they just took the time to understand how extremely important having an emergency medical policy, or trip cancellation coverage while on their vacation.

I know many individuals comment that they never get ill, or injured on past vacations, and my feedback to them is that they have been very fortunate. I myself have never been severely injured, or ill during my vacations, but I don’t take any chances.

Just like home insurance, or car insurance, you never expect your house to burn to the ground, and you certainly do not anticipate ever getting into a car collision. However, we all buy protection for the un-known for these two incidences, correct?

The problem with vacation travel is that many people feel that their holiday is short-term, and the odds of something serious happening are less likely to occur. But if something were to happen where you end up in a foreign hospital, I don’t think you want to find out later that your medical bills have exceeded the value of your house, or your savings account!

Unknown Emergency And Accident Means Just That! You Never Know If And When Something Will Happen

It’s hard to put something in perspective if you have never had an emergency situation with your health, or have had a serious accident. So to help you I will tell you two stories that I have come across with my experience of being a travel agent.

One occurrence was a mother and child was booking a flight to travel home to Jamaica to attend a family wedding. Her travel agent booked their flight, and recommended to her insurance medical and travel cancellation coverage. The women declined, and the agent didn’t express the serious nature of not taking the policy, so in the end the woman had left her office without any medical coverage.

Months later, I had our local travel insurance representative come visit my office, and he told me this story, and the unfortunate result was her young boy had come down with an ear infection prior to their flight to Jamaica, and even though she was consulted by the boys doctor not to take the flight until his condition healed, she ignored the requests!

The mother didn’t have the money to purchase two more flight tickets for another date, and proceeded to take her original flight. The end result was her child ended up losing his hearing due to his eardrum becoming damaged during the flight, a sad story, but an avoidable one if she would have taken cancellation coverage, and re-booked her flight for another day when her son was better.

My next story really touches my heart, because it was a client of mine for many years. My past client god rest his soul, was a typical stubborn man that grew up in a farm community, and had a true understanding of comprehensive coverage for accidents, because he operated many heavy machinery.

When he first came into my office, he was travelling with a group of people including his wife, and when he booked his first vacation package with me, he haggled me to the point where I gave in, and offered him and his guests a substantial discounted price. His group was saving at least $150.00 per person for their vacation package. But when it came to offering him and his travel guest’s insurance policies, he was not budging. For people that know me, I don’t take no for an answer when it comes to your overall wellbeing.

In the end, I won the battle, and he and his wife purchased the travel insurance, and they talked all their guests in getting it as well. This small group travelled to a hot destination every year after, and it seemed that their group started to grow larger every time they came to see me, and all the time they would joke about wasting money on this insurance I always provided to them.

My client after dealing with me for several years now came in once again with the largest group ever, and they all agreed to take a vacation in Cancun. Most have never been to the Mayan Riviera, and they were extremely excited to go there! The problem this time is that with a really large group with many different personalities and characters, my client was less jokingly, and said that he was talking to one of his guests going on this trip with them, and he expressed his opinion that insurance is nothing but a scam, and us travel agents only sell it for the commissions.

As these comments really insulted me, my client’s guest was right! We do make commission off selling travel insurance, but by no means do we offer or sell it for the main purpose of making money. My client was truly influenced by what this other person had commented, and we ended up having a lengthy debate, to the point it was getting a little heated. With over 15 plus couples traveling together this time, was I willing to lose a client and such a large group because of insurance? Oh yeah! Believe it or not, I would drop that business in a heartbeat if I knew they were traveling un-protected, and I told him that directly as he and his wife sat across from me.

In the end, I had won the battle again, my client made many phone calls and also convinced the others to take the coverage, and even though his trip was fully booked with me, he did leave my office feeling a little battered and slightly upset.

The Phone Call A Travel Agent Never Wants To Ever Receive!

When we send our clients off to their next vacation destination, all we want to hear when they get back is how much they ate, drank, and how their trip was another experience that will give them many incredible memories. You want them to talk about it for months, and have the big post picture party where they all exchange vacation photos and talk about how Henry fell into the pool with a handful of Margaritas!

In this situation, it wasn’t like that, and several days after my client had left for his holiday, I received a phone call from one of our tour operators that I had booked their package with, and they had expressed to me with the deepest sorrow and apology that my favourite client had passed away. His wife out of respect had asked the tour company to notify me of what happened.

With extreme disbelief and shock, I was told that he went into the water when there was an extremely powerful undertow, and he drowned. The fact that you have over 30 people at destination for only one reason, and that’s to relax and have fun, it just didn’t register that all these people on this trip had suddenly had a serious un-expected tragedy on their hands, and now they all were cutting the vacation short to come home.

This story always brings tears to my eyes, and a feeling of emptiness to this day!

Whether this story tugs on your heartstrings or not, I just want to express a few things to everybody taking the time to read this. As a travel professional offering travel insurance, as well as many of the online travel companies that sell travel protection to their clients, want you to know that our sincere and true intentions are to make sure that each and everyone of you are covered and have the peace-of-mind! We don’t want to see you being left stranded anywhere without help, or become financially burdened by any un-expected medical incident or accident while away from your home.

I lost one of my favourite clients, and even though I call him a client, he and his wife were more like friends to me. One thing that really stuck with me when this tragedy came to a final conclusion, is that not only did the tour company that called thank me for offering medical/cancellation insurance, but my entertaining and grumpy friend’s wife, from that small farm town, expressed her deepest gratitude to me for being extremely stubborn with them, and not taking no for an answer when it came to protecting their best interests.

The next time you decide to travel, I highly recommend that you consider looking at your insurance options, and make sure you have sufficient travel protection. Be sure to check the policies offered and make sure it’s adequate for your travel situation.

I will be writing another article that will express the common pitfalls, and some of the incorrect information that you may be getting from your current work plans, or the credit card offers.

Also I will explain some of the detailed terminology that is very important to understand, because what’s in the fine print may determine the outcome of your future claims while on vacation. Please remember to be nice to your travel agent when they offer you a travel insurance plan, and ask them tons of questions to get the best options. If you’re purchasing a policy online, don’t hesitate to contact the customer service department, they are there to help you and explain anything that may be unclear to you.

About the author: William Lezubski (Accredited Cruise Counsellor (ACC), and Certified Travel Counsellor(CTC) - William is a professional in the Travel Industry and is the owner and author of “Discount Caribbean Vacations Web Site” available at http://www.discount-caribbean-vacations.com. When deciding to go on a vacation this year, take the time to properly insure your wellbeing, and holiday investment with proper travel insurance coverage! Also don’t forget to travel with luggage that will keep your belongings safe and protected while enroute to your favorite destination.

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There are many different types of traveller. There are business men and women who are flying from one city to another for brief meetings, then there are families taking a two week holiday to the sun with young children, then there are students or gap year travellers who will be backpacking around exotic locations on extremely low budgets. There are really about as many different types of traveller as there are different types of person.

There are many different approaches you can take to booking your travel arrangements. Your main priority may be convenience, for example if you have a meeting near the airport you will need airport accommodation and little else, however, if you are travelling for pleasure, you are likely to have far less restrictions and will be willing to consider all types of arrangements. You can have these arranged for you by a travel agent or you could do it for yourself online. Or alternatively, you may wish to simply travel to a city or country with absolutely no plans and just see what happens when you get there.

On of the things you should always travel with is proper health and travel insurance. Obviously your requirements will again vary depending on what kind of travel you are undertaking. If you are travelling for business, full travel insurance that will provide you with alternative flights if yours is cancelled or delayed will be important. For most holiday travellers, this may not be quite as important. If you are travelling with children you may wish to consider it, but otherwise you may be quite flexible and tolerant if delays do occur. But you may be more worried about your luggage and belongings and wish to have good coverage for loss or damage to your property. All these options are available today with the various travel insurance companies that are operating in the market.

Generally speaking, you will always need health insurance when you travel. You cannot afford to take the risk that an accident or serious injury occurs and you do not have proper coverage. There are many parts of the word where free national health insurance is not provided and if you do require medical treatment, it will only be provided if you can pay for it. Particularly if you are travelling with children, you should always arrange adequate travel insurance with medical coverage. This is simply a risk that you do not want to be bearing yourself especially when the cost of travel insurance is so affordable.

Joseph Kenny is the webmaster of the insurance site http://www.insure121.com/ where you will find information, news and links to the leading providers of travel insurance in the UK.

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