Travel Insurance

As Canadians recover from the recession, travel and consumer confidence is on the rise. According to Statistics Canada, "Canadian travel to the United States and overseas countries rose 3.6% in March from the previous month." In fact, 4.4 million outbound trips were taken by Canadians in March. Of those trips, 3.7 million were to the US, an increase from February. The largest increase was in overnight car trips, up 1.5%. As for overseas travel, Canadians took 690,000 trips in March, up 1.8% from February.

A recent article in Travel Weekly states, "airlines, cruise lines, hotels and tourist boards are seeing figures that are well up on 2009 and are approaching 2008 levels." Although not as strong as 2008 numbers, travel is up more than anticipated. "The pace of improvement, based on an improving global economic situation, is much faster than anybody would have expected even six months ago," said Giovanni Bisignani, International Air Transport Association's director general and CEO.

The Conference Board of Canada expects leisure trips to grow by 14% between 2009 and 2013. Without a comprehensive travel insurance plan, tourists are responsible for all medical expenses if an accident or illness occurs away from home. As well, they may lose all non-refundable prepaid travel fees if forced to cancel or interrupt their trip.