A travel policy covers what goes wrong to your trip and to you: lost or delayed baggage, a delayed or cancelled trip, a lost passport, illness and injury abroad, medical evacuation, and injury during adventure sports done under proper supervision. Each is paid up to the limits in your plan, and each has conditions attached. What it does not cover is the part most people find out at claim time, so that section is here too.
This guide is maintained by Zurich Kotak General Insurance, an IRDAI-registered general insurer in India and part of the Zurich Insurance Group.
How Zurich Kotak fits in: Zurich Kotak’s own retail product, Smart Travel, is built from the covers set out below, so read this as a map of what a Zurich Kotak policy does rather than a general explainer: emergency medical treatment abroad, medical evacuation and repatriation, baggage loss or delay, passport loss, trip cancellation for specified reasons and trip delay, each up to the limits of the plan you buy. Two tiers run on the Asia geography, Excel with sum insured up to USD 100,000 and Prime up to USD 500,000, and the conditions attached to each cover are spelled out in the sections that follow. Cover is bought per trip and issued online once your dates are fixed.
Last verified: 2026-08-27.
What a travel policy covers, at a glance
Nine covers do most of the work, split between what happens to your trip and what happens to you.
Cover | What it responds to | Limit |
Baggage loss | Checked baggage lost in transit | Up to plan limits |
Baggage delay | Checked baggage that arrives late, so you buy essentials | Up to plan limits |
Trip cancellation | A trip called off before departure for a covered reason | Up to plan limits |
Trip delay | A departure delayed beyond the period stated in your policy | Up to plan limits |
Passport loss | Replacing a passport lost or stolen abroad | Up to plan limits |
Emergency medical | Illness or injury during the trip, including a pandemic | Up to the sum insured |
Medical evacuation | Moving you to adequate care, or home | Up to plan limits |
Repatriation | Bringing remains home | Up to plan limits |
Personal accident | Death or permanent total disability | Up to plan limits |
No separate rupee or dollar figure is published for the covers marked “up to plan limits”. They sit inside the plan you buy, and the policy schedule you receive at purchase is the document that states them. Ask for it, and read it, before you fly. For the wider list, see essential things covered by travel insurance .
Baggage: lost, damaged and delayed
Lost baggage and delayed baggage are two different covers, and they pay for two different things.
Baggage delay pays for the essentials you have to buy because your bag has not arrived: clothes, toiletries, a charger. It starts once the delay passes the period stated in your policy schedule, which is why the first thing to do at the airport is get the delay recorded, not go shopping. Baggage loss responds when the bag is not coming at all, and pays up to plan limits towards its contents.
What decides a baggage claim is paperwork you can only collect in the first hour:
1. Report the bag at the airline desk before you leave the arrivals hall and get a Property Irregularity Report (PIR) with a reference number.
2. Keep the boarding pass and the baggage tag stub. The tag is the only proof the bag was checked in.
3. Keep receipts for every essential you buy during the delay.
4. Ask the airline in writing what it has paid or will pay. A travel policy sits on top of the airline’s liability, not instead of it.
5. Tell the insurer while you are still travelling, not after you land home.
Electronics are treated separately. The retail Smart Travel gadget categories are mobile phones, laptops, tablets, e-readers and cameras, and settlement is on depreciated value, not what you paid. Purchase bills matter here more than anywhere else in the policy.
Trip delay and trip cancellation
Trip delay pays when your departure is held up beyond the period your policy states. Trip cancellation pays when the trip does not happen at all, for a reason the policy lists.
Both are paid up to plan limits, and both hinge on the cause rather than the cost. Covered reasons for cancellation include death or hospitalisation of the insured or an immediate family member, natural disaster, terrorism, a strike or riot, cancellation by the carrier, severe weather, compulsory quarantine, passport theft, and being prevented from travelling by a government. That list is illustrative rather than exhaustive, and your schedule governs. A change of mind is not on it, and never is on any insurer’s list.
For trip delay, keep the airline’s written confirmation of the delay and its stated reason. A delay you cannot evidence is one the insurer cannot pay.
Adventure and hazardous sports
Adventure and hazardous sports are covered, with conditions: the activity must be non-professional, under trained supervision, and in line with the operator’s safety guidelines.
Scuba diving with a licensed centre, a supervised bungee jump, a guided trek, a tandem paraglide with a certified pilot: this is the shape of activity the cover is built for. An optional Adventure Sports add-on extends the medical, personal accident and daily allowance benefits for these activities. If adventure is the point of the trip rather than an afternoon of it, buy the add-on rather than assuming the base plan stretches.
What falls outside is equally clear. Activity that is unlicenced, solo and unsupervised, or plainly reckless is excluded, as is professional or competitive participation, which is an occupational risk and not a holiday one. Ignoring the safety brief, or diving without the certification the dive required, moves an accident from covered to excluded on the same facts.
The rest of the position, including how the add-on attaches, is on the comprehensive travel insurance plan page.
Riding and driving abroad
Two-wheelers are where travellers most often assume cover they do not have.
A claim arising from a two-wheeler accident abroad requires a valid international driving licence and, where local law mandates one, a helmet. The Car Rental Excess benefit applies to cars only: it excludes motorcycles, mopeds and motorbikes, so it does not extend to a rented scooter. Hiring one in Bali or Phuket without a licence valid there is a common way to end up with an uninsured hospital bill.
Medical cover, and how much of it to buy
Emergency medical treatment abroad decides whether a bad trip is expensive or ruinous, and it is the cover to size deliberately.
On the Asia geography, Smart Travel offers two tiers: Excel, with sum insured up to USD 100,000, and Prime, up to USD 500,000. Maximum entry age there is 70, and there is no Senior Citizen plan on that geography, so travellers aged 71 and over need a different route. Emergency medical treatment because of a pandemic, including but not limited to Covid-19, is covered.
Pre-existing conditions sit under their own rule. They are generally excluded, but a declared pre-existing condition is covered in life-threatening situations up to 10% of the sum insured or USD 10,000, whichever is lower, and an optional pre-existing disease add-on is available. Cover applies only where the condition was declared when the policy was taken, accepted and recorded in the policy schedule. Declaring it is what makes the cover exist.
A single-trip policy can run for up to 180 days and be extended to 365 in total, with the extension premium carrying a 25% loading. The 30-day free-look period applies to annual multi-trip policies only.
What is not covered
This is the section worth reading twice, because it is where claims are actually lost.
Exclusion | What it means in practice |
Undeclared pre-existing conditions | A condition you had before the policy and did not declare is not covered, even when the emergency is genuine |
Professional or competitive sport | Adventure cover is for the traveller, not the athlete |
Unlicenced, solo or reckless activity | Diving without certification, riding without a valid licence, ignoring the safety brief |
Motorcycles and mopeds under rental excess | Car Rental Excess covers cars; rented two-wheelers are outside it |
Unattended baggage | A bag left in a public place or on a visible car seat is not a covered loss |
Cash and valuables outside the covered categories | Currency and jewellery are treated differently from checked baggage and are commonly excluded |
Gadget claims without purchase proof | Settlement is on depreciated value and bills establish it |
Delays below the policy threshold | Trip delay and baggage delay start only after the period stated in your schedule |
Foreseeable events | A strike or storm already announced when you booked is not an unforeseen loss |
Travel against medical advice | Flying when a doctor advised against it removes the medical cover you flew for |
Intoxication, self-harm and illegal acts | Standard across the market, and applied |
Trips longer than the policy period | Cover ends when the policy ends, whatever the ticket says |
None of this is unusual. What is unusual is being told before the trip rather than at claim time.
How a claim works
There are two routes, cashless and reimbursement, and they run to fixed service standards.
For cashless treatment, intimate the claim within 24 hours of admission so the network hospital can be authorised. For reimbursement, submit documents within 30 days of the event. Once the file is complete the claim is settled within 15 days, and delay beyond that carries interest at 2% above the RBI bank rate under the IRDAI protection-of-policyholders rules.
Two things decide most files. Intimate early, even before you know the size of the loss, because an intimation costs nothing and a late one is a real problem. And collect the evidence at the scene: the PIR at the baggage desk, the police report for a theft, the airline letter for a delay, the hospital’s records for treatment. Our guide to travel insurance claims sets out the document list cover by cover.
The 24x7 travel assistance helpline: +91 22 6734 7863.
Frequently asked questions
Does travel insurance cover lost luggage? Yes. Checked baggage lost in transit is covered up to plan limits. The claim depends on evidence you can only collect at the airport: a Property Irregularity Report from the airline before you leave arrivals, the baggage tag stub and the boarding pass. A travel policy sits on top of the airline’s own liability rather than replacing it.
Does travel insurance cover baggage delay? Yes. Baggage delay cover pays up to plan limits for the essentials you need to buy while your bag is missing, and it starts once the delay passes the period stated in your policy schedule. Get the delay recorded by the airline first, then keep every receipt.
Is adventure sports travel insurance included or an add-on? Both, in different measures. Adventure and hazardous sports are covered on the base policy where the activity is non-professional, under trained supervision and in line with safety guidelines. An optional Adventure Sports add-on extends the medical, personal accident and daily allowance benefits, and is the right choice when adventure is the purpose of the trip.
Are extreme sports excluded from travel insurance? Not by name, but by conduct. Professional or competitive participation is excluded, as is activity that is unlicenced, solo and unsupervised, or reckless. The same jump is covered with a certified operator and excluded without one.
How much travel insurance cover should I buy? On the Asia geography, Smart Travel offers Excel with sum insured up to USD 100,000 and Prime up to USD 500,000. Choose on the cost of healthcare where you are going rather than on the length of the trip. Maximum entry age on the Asia geography is 70.
How long does a travel insurance claim take? Once your documents are complete, the claim is settled within 15 days. Delay beyond that carries interest at 2% above the RBI bank rate. Intimate a cashless claim within 24 hours of admission, and submit reimbursement documents within 30 days of the event.
