With COVID-19 and other prevalent global viruses on travellers’ minds, the need for an understanding of proper travel protection has also grown. These and other general health and safety concerns related to travelling might have you wondering, “When is the right time to buy travel insurance?” As you’ll read with one essential worker’s experience with COVID-19 below, the answer might be sooner than you think!
Essential service worker contracts COVID-19 while on the job in the US
Dennis* is a 72-year-old long haul truck driver. Being an essential service worker, he’d been driving regularly across the Canada-US border throughout the pandemic. During one of his trips south of the border—and despite receiving his first COVID-19 vaccination 2 weeks earlier—Dennis started to feel unwell.
COVID-19 and related complications cause hospitalization
He felt the familiar symptoms of fatigue, muscle aches, chills and had a dry cough—but it was when he started coughing up blood and experienced shortness of breath, that Dennis drove himself to the nearest ER, while passing through Idaho. He not only tested positive for COVID-19, but doctors there also found that Dennis was suffering from complications related to pneumonia.
How travel insurance prevented Dennis from paying $75,000 out-of-pocket
While in the US, Dennis was admitted to the hospital’s COVID-19 ward and given oxygen therapy for a total of 4 days. He was then taken by air ambulance back to his home province for further care, while his truck was returned to Canada by his company.
If Dennis hadn’t bought Multi Trip Emergency Medical Insurance due to the nature of his work, he would’ve had a $75,000+ financial burden to deal with after his recovery. Relying solely on his provincial healthcare would’ve been a mistake, since it only covered $370—less than 1% of the total medical costs he incurred!
Dennis is just one of many people who benefited from COVID-19 coverage from TuGo’s Emergency Medical Insurance. Read about Colin’s experience here.
How TuGo protects travellers with COVID-19 coverage
With the direction travel—and all that it entails—has taken over the past couple of years, it’s crucial to understand how Emergency Medical Insurance helps protect travellers, the same way it did with Dennis. Learn how TuGo covers COVID-19, whether you’re on vacation or on a work trip, or simply passing by, with the help of an infographic.
Because government and travel industry response to COVID-19 has proven to be unpredictable throughout the pandemic, we’re updating our coverage frequently, to help protect travellers better. Be sure to visit our FAQs on tugo.com to get the most up-to-date information.
Safe travels in the year ahead,
Justin
* Based on actual claim with specific traveller details changed to protect privacy.
