Knowledge, Attitude, and Awareness of Health Insurance in Travel during the Covid-19 Pandemics

Abstract

Background Travel has become one of the most popular leisure activities in the world, especially international traveling. The risk of accident and travel related illness including infectious and non-communicable diseases should not be neglected. To provide more comprehensive pre-travel consultation to the international travelers, we aimed to investigate the knowledge, attitude, and awareness of travel health insurance for travelers. Methods Anonymous structured questionnaires were distributed to 1,000 visitors of the Taiwan International Travel Fair in May 2019. Results The top three kinds of travel health insurance were accidental death and disablement insurance (92%), accidental medical reimbursement (90.4%) and 24 hours of emergency assistance (89%). In addition to education level, travel-associated illness, and special activities during travel, a significant association was observed between the willingness to buy various travel insurance and willingness of pre-travel consultation. Conclusions Although most travelers would buy travel health insurance, disproportional respondents understood the content of travel insurance. Most travelers considered travel clinics to be the most reliable information resources of travel insurance. Therefore, travel specialists are encouraged to offer more information about travel insurance during pre-travel consultation, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.