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VietNamNet Bridge – While a lot of Vietnamese travelers are unaware of the importance of travel insurance, travel firms deliberately “forget” about this, because insurance premiums would push the tour fees high up.
Closing travelers’ eyes to insurance – the best choice for travel firms
Insurance companies once hoped that the tourism development with the increasingly high numbers of domestic and foreign travelers would give them more opportunities to sell more insurance policies. Insurers have launched a lot of insurance service packages, targeting different groups of customers. However, in reality, the increase of the number of tourists does not have much relation with the insurance premium increase.
According to VietQ.vn, travel firms regularly choose to take the insurance service package, under which the insurance premium is 1500 dong per day per head, while the compensation level would be up to 10 million dong per case per head.
Meanwhile, other travel firms try to “practice thriftiness” by buying the service package under which they have to pay 750 dong per day and get the compensation of five million at maximum.
The insurance premiums and the compensation levels are really too low, which would put travelers at a great disadvantage in case of accident. However, travelers obviously do not want to pay higher premiums, because this would make the tours more expensive, thus making it difficult to attract travelers.
While travel firms deliberately ignore insurance policies, Vietnamese travelers seemingly do not think much of this. An executive of a travel firm said that customers only seek the information about the tour fees and about the destinations, while none of them asks about insurance policies.
The executive went on to say that Vietnamese do not have the habit of taking insurance policies of any kinds. In case of accidents or troubles, they would use their own money instead of expecting the compensation, because they think the procedures they have to follow for compensation are too complicated.
If travelers get small accidents, they would not waste time to contact hospitals and insurance companies to get necessary documents and compensation. As for outbound travelers, taking insurance policies is a must. In the minds of travelers, this is just a compulsory formality, while they don’t think they need to ask for their rights to be implemented by travel firms.
However, experts believe that travelers would rethink about that, especially after the news about the group of Vietnamese tourists which got accident during their tour to Cambodia in July 2012.
Travel insurance not compulsory for travelers?
After the accidents, experts have voiced their concern about the inappropriate attention of travelers to insurance policies. They have called on travelers not only to consider the tour fees, but also to consider thoroughly the contracts’ provisions about the insurance rights, before making decisions.
The Tourism Law stipulates that enjoying travel insurance and other insurance policies in accordance with the current laws is one of the travelers’ interests. However, the Decree 92 dated June 1, 2007, does not clarify that insurance policies are compulsory for all travelers.
The current laws only stipulate that international travel firms, which do not buy insurance policies for Vietnamese outbound tourists, would be imposed the fine of 3-5 million dong
Experts believe that if the state stipulates that travel insurance is compulsory for all travelers, this would not only help ensure the interests of travelers, but also help increase insurance premiums, which could serve as a huge capital for the national economy.
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