Advantages
- Compared to individual travel insurance plans, group travel insurance plans typically cost 10% less. However, not all the plans that are advertised as group plans provide such cost advantage.
- Instead of doing a separate application for each person, it allows completion of one application and one payment for everyone. Each person in the group would still get their own individual ID card.
Restrictions
- Most group travel insurance plans require that each member have the same start date and end date.
- Each member must select the same deductible, coinsurance and the policy maximum.
- With some group plans, should any member of a group want to do any hazardous sports activity, such as: scuba diving, kayaking, jet skiing, bungee jumping, etc., and the activity is not covered by a base policy, the hazardous sports rider would be added for every member of the entire group at an additional cost. However, some group plans may allow you to add a hazardous sports rider for selected members only, raising only the selected members portion of the cost.
- Some group travel insurance plans require that all the members have the same citizenship. Therefore, if members have different citizenship, some of the group plans may not work. In that case, it might still be an option to purchase multiple group travel insurance plans, provided each member of the sub-group still meets the overall eligibility criteria.
- If some members of the group live in a different country, it may not be possible to purchase a group travel insurance policy. However, as noted above it still may be an option to purchase multiple policies.
- When purchasing a group travel insurance policy, members of the group must be a legitimate group. Any random collection of people who are all going to different places for different durations cannot be grouped together simply to attempt to get a group discount.
- If some of the members want to cancel the plan early, it may or may not be an option, as they are all supposed to be together as a group. In such cases, cancellations become challenging and cumbersome. It is best not to choose a group travel insurance product, if some members may want to cancel, instead, please purchase separate policies.
Tips
- Make sure that every member of the group knows the terms and conditions of the policy well so that they know what to expect. If only one of the members do the research, then purchases the policy and other members simply rely on that one member, they might not be getting the most appropriate policy for their needs or a plan as comprehensive as they would have hoped for.
- If you are traveling as a group, you should really stick together to avoid problems in an unfamiliar country. This can help reduce the chances of becoming a victim of crime or theft or any other undesirable situation. You may be able to get guidance from your local tour operator or hotel to understand what places to avoid. Of course, you can also do some research on the internet before traveling abroad.
Tour operators that routinely organize foreign tours should consider purchasing group travel insurance for their clients.
Corporations that routinely send groups of business travelers to foreign destinations should consider purchasing group travel insurance for their employees.
Church administrators that routinely send missionaries outside their home countries should consider purchasing group travel insurance for their missionaries.
There are several group travel insurance plans available to choose from, take a look at one that may fit your needs today.
