Travel health practice

All 5 free travel health questions

1. Which insurance may a travel agent who is not a registered insurance broker sell with bookings?

   • A Travel accident and sickness, baggage or trip cancellation insurance. Correct
   • B Any insurance for a client who books travel with them. The exemption is limited by its own words to a registrant 'acting in respect of travel accident and sickness, baggage or trip cancellation insurance', so it does not reach every class of insurance sold alongside a booking.
   • C Travel health insurance only. Travel health is only part of the named list; baggage and trip cancellation appear in the same clause, so restricting the exemption to health cover understates it.
   • D Travel accident and sickness insurance plus auto insurance on a rental car. Automobile insurance is not named in the clause, so placing it would fall back under the general prohibition that 'No person shall act as an insurance broker unless the person is a registered insurance broker under this Act.'

   Section 2 of the Registered Insurance Brokers Act lifts the broker registration requirement for a Travel Industry Act registrant only in respect of travel accident and sickness, baggage and trip cancellation insurance, so anyone placing a class outside that short list is acting as an insurance broker and must be registered.

   RIB Act, s. 2(2)(e)

2. Your client's travel policy covers his heart condition subject to a 90-day stability clause. Six weeks before he flies, his cardiologist adds a new medication and raises the dose of another. Which statement is TRUE about his cover for the heart condition?

   • A It can be lost over the medication changes. Correct
   • B It is unaffected; the clause looks only at new diagnoses. The clause requires 'no new medical conditions, symptoms or medications during the stability period', so medications are named alongside conditions and a new prescription counts on its own.
   • C It holds; he was not admitted to hospital. The test is stated as 'no changes to your medical condition' plus no new conditions, symptoms or medications; hospital admission is not the measure, so avoiding hospital does not satisfy it.
   • D It is unaffected; the clause runs only from departure. The period is expressly the stability period 'before your trip', so the window closes at departure rather than opening there.

   A stability clause requires no change to the medical condition and no new conditions, symptoms or medications during the stability period before the trip, so a new prescription and a dose change six weeks out fall inside that 90 day window and can put the heart condition outside the pre-existing condition cover.

3. Under which Government of Canada advisory levels will many travel policies not cover a trip?

   • A Avoid all non-essential travel, or avoid all travel. Correct
   • B Take normal security precautions, or exercise a high degree of caution. Neither of these lower levels is named in the warning, which identifies only the advisories to 'avoid all non-essential travel' or 'avoid all travel'.
   • C Any advisory at any level, which ends the policy automatically. No advisory voids a policy by itself: the Government of Canada 'does not issue its Travel Advice and Advisories for the purpose of travel insurance coverage or refunds', so the effect depends on the wording of the policy.
   • D Avoid all travel only, and no lower level. The warning names both advisory levels, so treating 'avoid all non-essential travel' as harmless is wrong.

   The federal guidance states that many travel insurance policies will not cover a traveller who goes to a region under a Government of Canada advisory to avoid all non-essential travel or to avoid all travel, so either of those two levels can leave a client uninsured, and whether cover is actually lost turns on the policy wording.

4. Which cover pays when a client has to call off a trip before it starts?

   • A Trip interruption insurance. Trip interruption responds after departure, paying back the unused part of a trip cut short.
   • B Travel health insurance. Travel health insurance answers medical emergencies abroad, not a cancelled booking.
   • C Trip cancellation insurance. Correct
   • D Lost luggage insurance. Lost luggage cover answers luggage lost in transit, not a cancelled trip.

   The federal guidance separates the two trip covers by timing: trip cancellation applies only when the traveller cancels before the trip starts, while trip interruption pays back the unused part of a trip cut short after departure. Travel health insurance answers medical costs abroad, so a trip called off at home falls to trip cancellation.

5. A client is admitted to a hospital in Florida and needs to be moved to an Ontario hospital for ongoing care. She left Canada without travel medical insurance. Who pays for the transfer home?

   • A OHIP pays the full cost of the transfer. The province's page is plain that OHIP pays nothing toward moving a resident from a hospital abroad to one in Ontario.
   • B She pays half of the cost of the transfer. OHIP pays none of the transfer, so there is no share for OHIP to carry; she bears all of it.
   • C OHIP pays once an Ontario hospital accepts her. Being accepted by an Ontario hospital does not bring the transfer into OHIP; the page puts that cost on a traveller with no travel medical insurance.
   • D She pays the full cost of the transfer. Correct

   The Government of Ontario's page on OHIP coverage outside Canada says OHIP does not pay for moving a resident hospitalized abroad to an Ontario hospital for ongoing care. With no travel medical insurance that covers transportation, the whole cost of the transfer falls on her, which is why that page tells travellers to buy travel medical cover before leaving.