What Is the Accidental Death Benefit in Travel Health Insurance?
As the name implies, an Accidental Death and Dismemberment (AD&D) benefit in travel health insurance offers compensation in the event of your unintentional death or dismemberment while traveling overseas. What circumstances, though, are covered? Which situations are not included?
Continue reading to find out what an AD&D benefit includes and why you should get one.
What Does Travel Health Insurance’s AD&D Mean?
If you are traveling overseas and have an accident that results in your death, blindness, or amputation of a limb, your travel health insurance policy’s Accidental Death and Dismemberment (AD&D) benefit will compensate you or your designated beneficiary. There are, of course, requirements. We’ll discuss those specifics below.
What Is Covered by AD&D?
AD&D insurance pays in the event that an accident results in your death or dismemberment right away or in the event that an accident produces a covered injury that kills you or dismembers you later. You may be covered by your AD&D benefit in the event of an automobile accident, watercraft accident, or fall-related injury.
Most Benefits for AD&D Pay:
- If a covered accident or injury results in your death, the full amount specified in your policy paperwork will be paid to your beneficiary.
- If you lose one limb or the ability to see in one eye due to a covered accident, you will receive a fraction of the whole amount, usually 50%.
- The entire sum payable to you in the event of a covered accident resulting in the amputation of two or more limbs or the loss of vision in both eyes
The following conditions must be met for your beneficiary to be eligible for your accidental death benefit:
- You pass away within a predetermined window of time following the first accident that results in your fatal injuries (usually 30 days).
- Disease or illness does not cause you to die.
- On a commercial airline or cruise line, the accident that results in your death does not occur while you are a paying passenger (Common Carrier Accident is often a separate benefit – more on that later).
- Your insurance exclusions do not clearly mention any circumstance or condition that led to the accident that killed you.
A provision known as Accidental Death and Dismemberment (AD&D) is included in many travel health insurance policies. The policy documentation for any policy you are considering will contain information about the benefit and its coverage limitations. It can also be seen on the policy’s main homepage.
The Policy Documents: What Are They?
The policy documents outline the insurance plan’s complete benefits and exclusions as well as the claims procedure. Usually, the policy’s main webpage or the quote form, where you enter the details of your trip and get an estimate of how much your policy would cost, provide a link to these documents.
(Note that after you purchase a policy, you will also receive these paperwork along with your other fulfillment documentation.)
Crucial Definitions You Must Understand
- Accidental death is a term used to describe circumstances in which outside factors culminate in an abrupt, unplanned, and unexpected event that ends in your death.
- Recall that death must happen within a specific amount of days after your injury. (This time frame is 30 days for Atlas Travel.) Disease or illness could not be a factor in your demise.
- Accidental dismemberment: Generally speaking, this refers to an instance in which outside factors trigger an abrupt, unplanned, and unanticipated event that either:
- total amputation of one or more extremities OR
- total and permanent blindness in one or both of your eyes
- Limb Loss: This can mean one of two things:
- total separation of your arm from your body at the wrist or above OR
- Total amputation of the leg at or above the ankle joint
- Loss of Eye: This is the total and irreversible loss of vision.PRO TIP: To view the detailed benefits of any policy you are thinking about, consult the policy’s DOC.
What Does Travel Health Insurance AD&D Not Cover?
Recap: You can only be eligible for the AD&D benefit if the cause of your injury or death is something that can be directly observed and observed outside of your body.
If a disease or condition plays a part in your demise, you are not eligible.
Let’s Use an Example to Make This Clear:
Imagine you are driving a rented automobile overseas when you have an epileptic episode. Your automobile crashes due to the seizure, leaving you with serious internal and exterior injuries. You pass away in the hospital from your wounds ten days later.
Even if you would have died as a result of your injuries sustained in an automobile accident, in this case your accidental death and dismemberment insurance would not cover you. Why? because you crashed due to your epilepsy. Since health issues are considered illnesses, epilepsy is classified as a seizure disorder.
Any affliction, disease, pathology, abnormality, sickness, or other medical, physical, or physiological condition is considered an illness.
Does My Policy Cover Accidental Death and Dismemberment?
We understand that it’s unsettling to consider what may occur if you suffered a major injury or perhaps lost your life while traveling overseas. However, it’s crucial that you pause to think about the possible repercussions of going overseas without insurance.
If you were to die accidentally, who would cover the associated costs? Could you pay for the medical bills associated with your amputation or blindness?
All travelers, in our opinion, should hope for the best but be ready for the worse. This is the reason why our Atlas Travel insurance policy offers up to $12,500 for the insured loss of one limb (for ages 18 through 69) and up to $25,000 for a covered death or loss of two limbs.
Both people under the age of 18 and those over the age of 69 can obtain AD&D coverage with Atlas Travel.
Does Bringing a Dead Body Home Get Coverage Under Travel Health Insurance’s AD&D Benefit?
The expense of returning your body or ashes home for a dignified burial or cremation is not covered by the Accidental Death and Dismemberment benefit found in most travel health insurance policies. Rather, you should look for a policy that offers Repatriation of Remains as a distinct benefit.
If your insurance covers the disease or injury that killed you, the Repatriation of Remains benefit covers the cost of returning your body to your home nation by air or land vehicle. The price of getting your body ready for transportation is also covered by this advantage.
In their hour of loss, your family may already have to plan and finance funerals in addition to the several thousand dollars that repatriation can cost. In order to give your family enough time to grieve and say farewell, your travel health insurance provider can arrange for your covered repatriation and cover all related costs.
Real-World Example: Returning Remains to Their Families Following a Deadly Thailand Accident
$5,323 from Thailand to the United Kingdom
Later that day, a British national, age 21, who was teaching in Thailand, was killed by a car accident. WorldTrips coordinated the treatment, preparation, and repatriation of his remains to his own country with his parents, the nearby hospital, and government representatives.
The cost of returning his body home to his family so they could give their loved one a respectable funeral was covered by the traveler’s Atlas Travel insurance, which paid $5,323.
Does AD&D for Flight Accidents Get Included in Travel Health Insurance?
Common Carrier Accidental Death is a benefit that is included in many travel health insurance policies, such as Atlas Travel, and provides accidental death flight insurance, often known as flight accident AD&D.
What Is Meant by Accidental Death of a Common Carrier?
Common Carrier Accidental Death provides coverage for overseas passengers who die as a result of an unplanned, unanticipated accident or injury, much like the AD&D benefit. Death cannot be caused by prior diseases or injuries; it must happen within a specific number of days after the accident or injury.
The Accidental Death and Dismemberment Benefit of Atlas Travel
Your age group determines whether AD&D costs are eligible for payment from Atlas Travel. Within each age group, the benefit cap indicates:
- the sum it will payout in the event of a covered death, or if two eyes or limbs are lost.
- the sum it will reimburse in the event that one eye or limb is lost under coverage
There is a lifetime maximum amount attached to the benefit. This is the most Atlas Travel will ever pay for your lifetime insured accidental death or dismemberment charges.