With more borders opening up, many people are planning for their traveling trips. Previously I’ve written a comparison of travel insurance in Malaysia here. However, with Covid-19 still living with us, we will need a travel insurance that covers Covid-19 related issues. Here are some of the things that you should look out for when picking a Covid-19 travel insurance:
- quarantine allowance
- hospitalization
- trip cancellation
Let’s take a look at the travel insurance in Malaysia that covers Covid-19.
AIG
AIG’s travel insurance covers Covid-19 which includes:
- medical and emergency evacuation & repatriation expenses up to RM700k
- travel cancellation
- travel curtailment & quarantine allowance benefits
Please note that for one-way trip, you will only get 1 benefit which is travel cancellation and postponement for non-refundable travel and/or accommodation expenses.
Besides that, here are some T&Cs that you should take note of:
- trip cancellation due to epidemic/pandemic-related advisories issued by governments
- trip cancellation or curtailment due to border closures
- if the airline, hotel, or trip agent offered voucher or credit for cancellation refund
- mandatory quarantine for all arriving passengers
Here are the travel insurance with Covid-19 related benefits that AIG offers:
Although on 1st glance it might seem like Basic plan would do, but if you drill down further to the daily Covid-19 quarantine allowance, you might want to consider taking standard or deluxe plans instead. For example, if you go to US (exchange rate 4.4 for instance), you are just getting slightly more than USD50 per day which can be a tight budget.
Here is the full price list and the countries that they cover:
For more info on the plans and T&Cs, you may visit: https://www.aig.my/personal/travel/travel-insurance
AXA
AXA does not have a Covid-19 travel insurance. Instead, they offer Covid-19 benefits as add-on to their travel insurance products. Besides that, depending on where you are traveling to, there are different prices based on the 3 areas below:
Here are their add-on plans for Covid-19 for ‘Individual’ plan and ‘Single’ trip:
Please note that they offers VIP and Classic plans for their travel insurance. And to add on for Covid-19, you must purchase the VIP plan.
Besides that, they also do not offer any quarantine allowance in their Covid-19 add-on benefits. For the full policy wording, you may refer to: https://www.axa.com.my/wf-assets/policy-wording-axa-travel-online (page 33-37 for pandemic coverage)
Berjaya Sompo
Berjaya Sompo is similar to AIG where the Covid-19 benefits are included in the travel insurance plans.
Here is their price list and area of coverage:
And here is the list of Covid-19 related benefits:
You can see that they also have overseas quarantine allowance due to Covid-19. However, their allowance is much lesser compared to AIG’s.
Berjaya Sompo has one of the most comprehensive and easy to find Covid-19 FAQs here: https://online.berjayasompo.com.my/travel-insurance/articles/travel-insurance-faqs/
Chubb
Chubb offers Travel Pro, Travel Lite, and Travel Basic packages which includes Covid-19 benefits as below:
You can take a look at the full benefits tables in the link here: https://www.chubbtravelinsurance.com.my/cti/my-en/home/learn/our-products/what-is-covered.html
They do not have a price list but based on their area of coverage below, I have compiled the prices:
- Zone 1
- Zone 2
- Zone 3
Chubb has one of the most comprehensive and organized Policy Wording. You can download from the link here and scroll to the bottom. The Covid-19 benefits are in page 50-55 in their Policy Wording.
Etiqa
Etiqa is similar to AXA where you can purchase a travel insurance and add-on Covid-19 benefits. However, they have more countries covered based on the table below:
Their benefits for Covid-19 is as below under section H:
Based on the table above, you can see that regardless of which package you took (silver/gold/platinum), their Covid-19 benefits are the same. Therefore, you just need to focus on the other benefits when choosing which Etiqa travel insurance plans to purchase.
Here are the prices to add-on for the Covid-19 benefits:
For more info, you may read through their policy wordings and product disclosure sheets which you can download from the links below:
Great Eastern
Great Eastern offers 2 main travel insurance plans as below:
There are 3 main differences between the 2 plans above which are only found in Travel For More:
- loss of deposit or payment due to abscondment or insolvency of travel agents
- trip postponement
- optional add-on for adventurous activities
In addition, if you look into their brochures, Travel For More has 3 more plans to choose from which are named Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C (with Covid-19 benefits extension). On the other hand, Great Voyager has 2 more plans which are Essential and Supreme (with Covid-19 benefits extension).
If you compare Plan C and Supreme, they are almost the same except the 3 main differences above. I have listed down some of the main benefits related to Covid-19 in the table below for easier reference as they details are in 2 different PDFs:
| Benefits | Plan C | Supreme |
|---|---|---|
| Medical expenses | 300,000 | 300,000 |
| Follow-up medical treatment in Malaysia | 30,000 | 30,000 |
| Hospital allowance | 10,000 (300 per day) | 10,000 (300 per day) |
| Emergency medical evacuation and repatriation | 1,000,000 (up to 150,000 for Covid-19) | 1,000,000 (up to 150,000 for Covid-19) |
| Repatriation of mortal remains | 1,000,000 (up to 15,000 for Covid-19) | 1,000,000 (up to 15,000 for Covid-19) |
| Trip cancellation | 20,000 (up to 5,000 for Covid-19) | 20,000 (up to 5,000 for Covid-19) |
| Trip postponement | 2,000 | N/A |
| Trip curtailment | 20,000 | 20,000 |
Here are the price lists and the countries in area 1 and 2:
- Great Voyager price list
- Travel For More price list
MSIG
MSIG also provides option add-on for Covid-19 benefits. Here are their basic travel insurance plans and their prices:
Below are the Covid-19 benefits based on the different travel insurance plans:
Below is the price list for their Covid-19 add-on plans:
For more information, you can download their brochure, Policy Wording, Covid-19 leaflet and FAQs here under ‘Download’ section.
Tune Protect
Like Great Eastern, Tune Protect offers travel insurance with or without Covid-19 coverage. For the plans with Covid-19 coverage, they will have the Basic Plan benefits which includes:
- medical expenses/emergency medical evacuation
- personal accident
- travel delay
- trip cancellation/curtailment
- baggage loss/damage/delay
- loss of travel documents
- home care
Here are the 2 plans that come with Covid-19 benefits:
Tune Protect does not have a price list like the others but I’ve shortlisted 3 popular regions:
- Thailand/Singapore, Australia/New Zealand
- United States
- United Kingdom
For more info, you may visit their website: https://www.tuneprotect.com/products/travel-easy-insurance/
Conclusion
Based on so many insurance companies in Malaysia, I managed to find only 8 companies that offer Covid-19 travel insurance (or as optional add-on).
Here are some of the findings after reading through the brochures and Policy Wordings by the insurance companies:
- trip postponement – there are only 2 companies that covers this benefit for Covid-19 which are AIG and Great Eastern (Plan C only)
- quarantine allowances vs hospital allowances
- quarantine allowances – AIG, Berjaya Sompo, Tune Protect
- hospital allowances – AXA, Chubb, Etiqa (however, it is not stated under Covid-19 add-on benefits but it is in their normal travel insurance benefits which is a grey area), Great Eastern, MSIG
- Other optional add-ons (non Covid-19 related)
- adventurous activities – AIG (scuba diving and winter sports), Etiqa, Great Eastern (Travel For More plans only), MSIG
- chartered flight – MSIG
- cruise – AXA, Chubb
- golf – AIG, Chubb
If a person contracted Covid-19 while traveling and shows symptoms, depending on the seriousness and the government rule/law, the person might not need to be quarantined in a hospital. Therefore, to be safe, it is better to pick the plans with quarantine allowances instead of hospital allowances. And among the 3 companies that provides quarantine allowances, I would suggest AIG as it has higher allowances especially if you are going to places with more expensive currency than MYR. However, it does come with a higher price tag.
Lastly, there are also other things to consider like price, other optional add-ons, Takaful insurance (only Etiqa offers this), and also the the most important element which is ease of claiming. I had an experience with AXA and it was not a pleasant one.
If you have used any of the insurance companies above and went through their claiming process, please feel free to share your experience in the comment section below.
