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If your clients are among the 60% of Canadians who plan on travelling within the country but outside of their home province, they likely don’t expect to buy travel insurance.
As Dan Keon, the director of marketing and communications for Allianz mentioned, it’s well understood that other provinces will cover your healthcare.
However, vehicular ambulance rides aren’t covered for Canadians outside the province where they reside and air ambulance trips or commercial airline repatriation costs can add up fast.
“Some insurers will provide plans that are specific to travel within Canada,” Keon said. “But for the most part, any travel insurance product that is meant for someone travelling outside the country is more than sufficient for someone travelling within Canada because it will include those benefits for things like medical repatriation whether by air ambulance or commercial flight.
“I think the opportunity for brokers is rather than waiting for your customer to mention if they’re travelling, because it may not be top of mind when they’re talking to their broker, every time a broker is renewing a home or auto policy, it’s great to ask if they have any travel plans for the upcoming year.”
An RBC Insurance survey found 79% of Canadians were planning on travelling this year, but among those who planned on travelling outside of their province but within Canada, 53% did not plan on buying travel insurance.
“For most brokers selling travel insurance, their aim is to be able to offer a multi-trip or an annual plan - because what that means is a customer is covered for the whole year no matter the number of trips they take,” Keon said. “Also it offers an opportunity to renew their policy at the end of the year and keeps them on as a preferred customer for travel insurance. The other piece there is that if somebody buys a multi-trip plan that will cover them regardless of whether they’re inside of Canada or outside.”
There are even further coverages on single trips for the many unexpected bumps in the road for wherever your client is going.
“Say they’re flying from Ontario and they’re going to see the west coast for example, there are technical benefits that aren’t your typical medical benefits,” Keon noted. “They cover things like trip cancellation, trip interruption, they cover your baggage. Those typically aren’t available on a multi-trip plan or on an annual trip basis - they’re more for a single trip plan - but they’re equally important for travelling within Canada or outside of Canada for protecting your trip investment.”
