One of the most important things to consider when going abroad is how your insurance will be affected, so this is a fantastic question to be asking and receiving an education on.

Life insurance is especially important to consider, because most standard policies do not cover you once your leave your country of residence for any reason. Unfortunately, this is a little known fact and going abroad is such an exciting thing, filled with so many factors to arrange, that life insurance often isn’t even thought about. Visit www.aami.com.au to get your own life insurance quote today.

But what happens when tragedy strikes abroad? It can happen while you’re traveling for business, or vacation, just as easy as it can right here at home – easier, even. When you’re a fish out of water in a new country, there’s a lot that you don’t know, can’t predict, and can only prepare for to a certain degree.

With that being the case, how do you make certain that your life insurance will financially provide for your loved ones if something should happen to you abroad?

Obtaining Global, or International, Life Insurance

A global, or international, life insurance policy is a term policy built from the ground up to match your travel plans – no two are identical and they exist solely to cover you while you’re abroad. While these policies vary wildly from insurer to insurer, you can expect some of the baselines to include the following:

• Policy holder must be travelling or working outside of the country where they hold citizenship
• Coverage limited to $1,000,000 USD
• 1 to 10 Year Term Periods
• Policy Holder Age Range: 18 to 65

Notice above that the typical term periods offered by international life insurance policies range from 1 to 10 years –  it may be that you don’t need a full year, but in most cases, you’ll have to purchase it anyway. Now, if you travel often for business –  and aren’t covered by your employer for international travel –  it can behoove of you to go ahead and establish a multi-year policy that will be up and running as you go back and forth.

Setting Up an International Policy

You’ll want help – don’t take on one of these policies on your own. As mentioned, they are very specific to your travel itinerary, come loaded with fine print, and you can very easily get the wrong policy for what you need. It often happens that individuals purchase these policies, don’t fully understand them, and end up violating the policy’s exclusions, rendering it void right at the worst possible time for your loved ones.

This can be avoided by enlisting the help of a financial advisor that specializes in international life insurance specifically. A niche advisor like this will know the market backwards and forwards, will have experience with similar travel itineraries, and can help you cover all the bases.

Furthermore, a specialist can help you investigate your situation to determine if you even need an international policy, or if there’s a way you can obtain one for cheaper. There might be coverage that exists through your employer that you’re unaware of, or your current life insurance provider might be willing to extend international insurance at a substantial discount since you’re already a policy holder with them. On the flip side of that, a financial specialist might be able to tell you that the offer extended by your current insurance company isn’t good enough and that there’s more affordable options.

If you’re planning on going abroad soon, take a day and make sure that all of your life insurance ducks are in a row – you’ll be happy that you did and be able to travel abroad with security and peace of mind.