Overseas travelers, especially to the US, have made major changes to their travel habits, some of which are reflected in the sales of travel insurance.
"We are not sure whether there are more travelers buying travel insurance in the past month, but one thing we are sure about is that those who have bought, purchsed higher amounts of protection than before. In the past people would buy about NT$5 million worth of coverage -- now they want NT$8 million in coverage or even higher," said Peter Van (范盛斌), an executive at Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽).
The increase in coverage was useful for the family of a passenger on the American Airline Airbus-300 that crashed in Queens, New York last Monday.
One of the two Taiwanese passengers, Chen Ching-chih (陳清智), bought NT$30 million worth of travel insurance coverage from Zurich Insurance Group (蘇黎世保險集團) before taking the flight. Following the crash, Zurich Insurance said Chen's family would be awarded NT$30 million immediately.
According to the company, Chen bought two travel insurance policies from them, including a NT$15 million policy from Zurich Insurance (Taiwan) and another NT$15 million Zurich Travel Safety Insurance policy from Zurich Life Insurance. The total insurance premium for these two policy was about NT$3,000.
According to Zurich Insurance, it costs under NT$1,500 to have a travel insurance policy with NT$15 million in coverage.
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