Seen At 11: Travel Insurance Offering Coverage For Chaos
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Ebola, terrorism and political unrest can make a traveler think twice about booking a trip.
But as CBS 2's Kristine Johnson reported, there's a new trend in travel insurance that promises to help keep you out of harm's way.
"It was the trip from hell," traveler Neil Hecht said of his trip that left him stranded at sea during Superstorm Sandy. "Oh God, the winds were about 80 miles an hour, and the waves were crashing over the top deck."
Instead of being stuck for days, Hecht could have been helped much earlier had he had a new, special type of insurance.
"The assistance company will make arrangements to have you taken from wherever you are to a safe haven," travel expert Bill McGovern said.
Conflict insurance is the latest trend in travel that doesn't pay you. It saves you by providing search and rescue benefits.
"They have ex-CIA individuals, ex-U.S. State Department individuals under employment, so they'll arrange for local people that know the back roads; arrange for a meeting place. They may arrive with a taxi cab with a driver that knows other entrances or exits out of that country," McGovern said.
McGovern is the president of a travel insurance firm on Long Island that started writing these new policies to fit world events.
"When the word gets out from the State Department that Americans should leave the country, that triggers this coverage," he said.
McGovern says this kind of insurance was once designated for diplomats and chief executive officers alone, but it's now available to all travelers -- including Oren Lieberman, who recently bought it for the first time.
"We were in Thailand the day the protests officially started in January," Lieberman said.
He recently returned from a trip around the world with his wife.
"We did go to Jordan, and that was iffy; we were a little nervous about that," he said.
But he had a safety net.
"It covered medical, political evacuation, natural disaster and a few other contingencies that you never plan on. But of course, nobody plans -- they just happen," he said.
And although he never had to actually use his insurance policy, Lieberman says he was glad to have it.
"It's one of those things you never want to use, and one of those things you always want to have," he said.
To have the coverage, it could cost up to 15 percent of the price of your trip.
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