Chapter 9: How To Edit Your Travel Insurance Policy Online

We live in a time of constant change, and your travel plans aren’t immune. If something happens that significantly alters a planned trip, you may find yourself needing to edit your travel-insurance policy.

Don’t panic. Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection makes editing your travel insurance policy easy.

Here are the key things you need to understand about the policy editing process:

Why trip cost is important and how it could change
Other reasons why you’d want to edit your policy
How to find your policy online
How to make and save changes
How to make more changes
How to reach out for help

Why Trip Costs May Change – and How It Affects Your Policy

The No. 1 reason why you’d want or need to edit your policy is because your trip cost changed. To understand why that’s a big deal, you need to understand the importance of trip cost in the world of travel insurance.

Trip cost and risk

Travel insurance isn't super complex. Like all insurance, it’s built on the idea of risk.

The risk in this case is twofold:

The risk that you might get hurt or have to cancel or interrupt your trip

The amount of money that’s at risk in those situations

Your age and the destination of your trip can affect how much you pay for coverage, but the real determinant in travel insurance premium is the amount of money at risk – i.e., the cost of your trip.

Travel insurers define that trip cost in very specific terms.

When you buy travel insurance, you’re asked how much your trip costs in terms of prepaid, non-refundable travel expenses that aren’t insured somewhere else – and that amount is the trip cost for travel insurance purposes.

The terms “prepaid’ and “non-refundable” are very important, so let’s examine them.

‘Prepaid’ and ‘non-refundable’

Prepaid expenses are the ones you paid far in advance of your trip. These include things like:

Plane tickets

Hotel reservations that are non-refundable (which we’ll discuss in a minute)

Cruise booking fees

Event tickets

Car rentals

Cruise excursions

It’s not enough for these expenses to have already been paid. They also have to be non-refundable – that is, the only way you could get your money back for these expenses is through travel insurance.

Now, some prepaid travel expenses could be refundable, depending on how, where and when you purchased them. They’re normally expenses like:

Fully refundable hotel rooms or plane reservations

Refundable rental-car expenses

Portions of things like cruise costs that can be refunded depending on when you cancel

Trip costs paid for with a credit card that offers refunds for unused travel expenses

If a cruise line reimburses you for your cancelled cruise, travel insurance isn’t going to reimburse you as well. If it does, you need to pay back the insurance company.

The price of a travel policy is based in large part on the sum of those prepaid, non-refundable expenses that aren’t covered somewhere else. The larger the sum of those expenses, the higher your premium will likely be.

So how can those amounts change?

Many travelers think that once they’ve paid for their cruise or tour and bought travel insurance, they’re done spending. But sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they spend additional money on their trip. Consider scenarios like these:

They add on days to their trip because of a cruise-line promotion, or because a couple of days in Lisbon just sounds dreamy.

They add excursions to their cruise.

They rent a car and pay for it in advance.

They score tickets to a soccer match in Barcelona.

They finally decide to visit Disneyland Paris and buy tickets in advance.

These are new prepaid, non-refundable expenses, and they change the total trip cost – substantially, in some cases.

Travel insurance won’t cover these new expenses automatically. If you don’t add those costs to your policy they won’t be covered if you cancel or interrupt your trip.

Yes, you’ll probably have to pay a higher premium to cover those new expenses under your policy, but the cost will be far less than what you could stand to lose out of pocket in the event of a covered trip cancellation or interruption.

To make sure everything is appropriately covered, you need to change the trip cost on your policy.

Beyond trip costs, some other reasons you may want to edit your policy

While a changed trip cost is the No. 1 reason why you should edit your policy, there are other reasons. Chief among them: adding someone to your policy. Your mother-in-law decides to tag along on your cruise. Fine. Add her (and her trip cost) to the policy.

Otherwise, you should edit your policy if:

Your travel dates change

Your destination changes (or you feel you need to correct the destination)

You decide to add an optional coverage

You read your policy and find a typo in information you supplied

You never may know exactly why you may want to edit your policy; it’s just good to know you can.

How to find your policy online

Whether you buy Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection online or through a travel advisor, you’ll receive an email from BHTP confirming your coverage.

Don’t delete that email. It’s important. Put it in an email folder for your trip or in some other location where it’s easy to access.

You can also print it and put it in your physical travel folder.

If you determine you need to edit your policy, here’s how to find your policy online:

Find and read the email you received from BHTP confirming your coverage. Policy information is in that email.

Write down the policy number.

Go to bhtp.com and click on “My Trip” in the header.

When the new page pops up, enter your policy number, email, and postal code.

After you input that information you’ll be taken to a screen that states the coverage you bought. One of the options at the top will be “Edit Policy.” Click on that and confirm your identity, and then it’s off to the next step.

How to make and save changes

Once you click “Edit Policy,” you’ll be shown the information you entered and be given the chance to edit key information like:

Names

Birth dates

Total trip cost

Destination

Number of people covered

To make changes, click into the appropriate fields, input the new information, double-check to make sure it’s okay, and then save the changes.

Things to keep in mind:

If you’re increasing the insured trip cost, make sure the new trip cost is the sum of the old trip cost plus the additional costs.

Have birthdate information available for any people you’re adding to the policy.

You’re probably going to be paying some added premium, so make sure your payment method is still valid or have a new payment method on hand.

After you make changes to your policy, it’s saved under the same policy number. You can always follow the above process to find the most current version.

Once you’ve submitted your changes, BHTP will send you a confirmation email within minutes.

Save your new email confirmation in case you need to make additional changes or reference your policy in the future.

How to make more changes (and get help if you need it)

What if you follow this process to the letter, but look at your edited policy and find another typo?

It happens. Just repeat the above process, input the same policy number and make your changes.

If editing your travel insurance policy still seems too much for you, reach out to our assistance team. As the name implies, they’re here to help you through situations like these.

From 7 a.m.-7 p.m. CST Monday-Friday you can reach them via phone at 844-411-2487, and you can always email the team at assist@bhtp.com.

Relax – it’s taken care of!

As you can see, BHTP is about making things easy … because there are enough difficult things about travel.

That ease and fast email confirmation carries through to our industry-leading array of plans and our super quick claim payments.

If all this sounds good, get a quote from BHTP today.

And if things change … well, you know what to do.

CHAPTER 8

CONCLUSION

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