Going to a country with a negative travel advisory, watch out your travel insurance!

The Ministry of External Affairs provides travel advisory for Indians who intends to travel abroad. The advisory is reviewed at regular intervals and as the need arises.

For each particular country, the ministry offers a summary of safety and security warning that is based on the analysis of information from the Indian embassies, intelligence services and local information. The advisory also provides details with regards to natural disasters, health concerns and entry requirements.

The warnings are of many levels right from no travel problems to advisory against all travel or in certain circumstances, all but essential travel to a country.

Business or urgent family commitments are considered essential travel.

But how does all this affect your travel insurance?

Typically, a travel insurance policy is not valid if you visit the country or any part of a country against whom an unfavourable travel advisory is issued. In case if the warning is only against non essential travel, the criteria for validity would be different. Each travel insurance company has its own set of rules to deal with advisories.

In case the advisory is issued when you already have embarked on your overseas trip, you will have to follow advice pertaining to any threat like government-ordered curfew. If you do not follow such advice, your travel insurance may stand invalid.

If a travel advisory leads to cancellation of your trip, the travel insurance company will pay for accommodation that you may already payments for. In case where you have to change your destination due to an advisory, typically, the policy is transferred to cover the new destination without any associated administration cost. Although you may have to pay slightly more premium amount if the difference in the premium of the new destination is higher. Again this depends from insurer to insurer.

World health organization regularly issues travel advisories against travel to regions that are affected by pandemics or communicable diseases. A few travel insurance companies include WHO advice in their travel insurance policy and may not cover you for travel to the affected region. This is over and above the travel advisory issued by the Ministry of External Affairs.