Why Travel Insurance is Important for Beach Vacation Rentals
Planning a beach vacation is exciting, with visions of sun-kissed shores, refreshing waves, and endless relaxation. But, as much as we might not want to think about it, it's crucial to recognize the potential risks that come with beachfront rentals.
Water-related accidents and injuries, storms and hurricanes, damaged beach gear, and other beach-specific risks can quickly turn your dream getaway into a nightmare. That's why having a travel insurance plan designed for vacation rental trips is essential.
Before you dig your toes in the sand, consider getting travel protection that can help with the unexpected twists and turns that may arise during your beach retreat.
Here are some examples:
Water-Related Accidents and Injuries
Water is beautiful and fun, but it can also be dangerous – and not just in one way. Water has more ways to ruin a vacation than there are colors in a coral reef.
Water can fall from the sky by the buckets-full. It can rise to the point where your beachfront rental now has a swim-up bar. It can have rip currents, red tides, tsunami waves, sharp coral and poisonous fish.
Seriously, water is dangerous. It has many ways to mess up a vacation, so remember that when you’re watching the sunset across acres of it.
Having insurance with coverage for water-related medical emergencies is essential for anyone renting a beachfront property.
Storms and Hurricanes
This was mostly covered in the previous section, but large bodies of water create atmospheric instability, which can lead to rain that more closely resembles Niagara Falls than your garden-variety thundershower.
Couple that with 100-mile-an-hour straight-line winds and even the most stormproof structure is likely going to make some concessions.
The remedy? Choose insurance that helps protect you when water makes your vacation rental (or your actual home) uninhabitable or a mandatory evacuation rears its ugly head.
Rental Car Damage
When a palm tree falls on your rental car in a hurricane, you do not want to cover that with cash or put that on your auto insurance policy. You want someone else covering that.
Fortunately, Generali’s Guest Protect and Seaside Coastal Travel Insurance plans include Rental Car Damage coverage. It provides coverage if your rental car is damaged from collision, theft, vandalism, natural disasters or any other cause beyond your control during your trip.
Beach Closures and Trip Inconvenience
What if you were to spend all winter dreaming of sitting on a warm, sandy beach, and when you finally get to the beach you find it’s closed! No matter how badly it messes up your vacation, when the lifeguards say everyone off the beach, it’s time to leave.
Generali’s Seaside Coastal Travel Insurance Plan can’t convince the lifeguards to open the beach, but it does include $250 in Trip Inconvenience coverage. You can claim this if the beach at your destination is closed for 24 hours or more by government authorities due to contamination by bacterial, algal, marine or water bloom or due to the nesting or migratory patterns of the destination’s wildlife, and there are no alternate open beaches within a 5-mile radius.
It won’t make up for missed time at the beach, but it can make you feel a little better about it.
Beach Gear
Many beach vacation rentals provide amenities like surfboards, snorkeling gear, and other beach equipment. Maybe you even brought your own. Either way, Generali plans may help.
A Vacation Rental Damage Protection Plan may cover you in the case of accidental damage to the rental or items included with the rental, including beach gear. So, if the kayak included with your rental takes a wipeout and needs repair or replacement, you’ll be glad you insured your trip.
In addition, the Seaside Coastl Travel Insurance Plan includes Sporting Equipment coverage for loss, theft or damage to your sporting equipment during your trip. So, if your own surfboard or scuba gear is damaged on your trip, you may be reimbursed up to $1,000 per person.
Likewise, if your surfboard gets delayed for a day or more – you make it to your vacation rental, but your board doesn’t -- the Seaside Coastal Travel Insurance Plan also comes with Sporting Equipment Delay coverage, which can help you pay for a rental until the real thing comes along.
Beach Risks
So many ways to get hurt on a beach, from swimming into jellyfish to stepping into a tunnel to China dug by an ambitious six-year-old.
Coverage from Generali's Guest Protect and Seaside Coastal Travel Insurance plans can help protect your rental vacation from a plethora of beach-related mishaps.
Contact your vacation rental company and get your travel insurance quote … then it’s time to hit the beach!
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