Travelling overseas can be a daunting experience for even the most seasoned traveller; this is exacerbated when sending your child on a language exchange or hosted immersion holiday. For many parents, this will be the first time they will be sending their child to travel unaccompanied. Understandably, this can be a stressful prospect for both parent and child. With this in mind, the Lingoo network is developed so that you can build a relationship with your child’s exchange family or host, and allow enough time to thoroughly to prepare adequately and cover all bases, well before you travel. One important part of your preparation is to ensure that your child has the appropriate insurances before leaving for their language exchange or homestay hosted holiday. While no one wants to consider things going wrong, insurance offers peace of mind and protection in case there are any unexpected events or emergencies.
Insurance for Going on Language Exchanges or Hosted Immersion Holidays
There are three types of insurance that we recommend families purchase for their child before travelling on a Lingoo language exchange or hosted immersion holiday:
- Civil Liability Insurance
- Repatriation Insurance
- Medical Insurance (If applicable)
Civil Liability Insurance
Is a type of policy that is purchased to provide coverage for the cost of material or immaterial damage to a third party that your child may cause involuntarily during their stay. Note! If your child is already covered by this type of insurance, check that it is not limited to their home country.
Repatriation Insurance
Is designed to help your child get home on medical grounds such as illness or accident requiring in-patient hospital treatment. This may sound intimidating, but it is important for peace of mind.
Travel Insurance
Is designed to cover your child in the case of illness or complications during travel, such as delays and cancellations. If you are coming from an EEA country or Switzerland, then your child is entitled to care by approved doctors and costs by the countries welfare organisation. However, in many cases your child may have to see private doctors with higher fees. Therefore, you may want to consider travel insurance to cover your child. Depending on your provider, this cover may also include repatriation insurance It is worth checking to see whether you already have this cover included via other channels. For example, many debit and credit cards offer this cover as an additional service.