Personal Loans and Insurance

STEVENS POINT, Wis., Aug. 31 – On Thursday, the tropical storm Gustav will pass close to Jamaica. Computers are showing the storm to hit New Orleans by Monday as a possible Category 3 hurricane or Texas or Mississippi by Monday. This just a short time after Tropical Storm Fay did its damage in Florida. For consumers, these increasingly frequent storms are a reminder of the damage and disruptions hurricanes can cause at this time of year. To help deal with this, AIG Travel Guard is suggesting that vacationers buy travel insurance this fall when making plans for trips or for traveling between now and November, since this is typically the height of the hurricane season.

The National Hurricane Center has made it clear that the path of Tropical Storm Gustav's cannot yet be accurately calculated. At the same time, Tropical Storm Hanna the eighth storm to be named during the Atlantic hurricane season, is forming northeast of Puerto Rico. Those travelers wishing to purchase travel insurance for possible losses that might be incurred by storms Gustav and Hannah, are too late, but their appearance serve as a reminder that this time of the year is traditionally an active hurricane period. It was just last year that Hurricane Dean, representing the first Category 5 hurricane to hit land in a period of 15 years, in the Atlantic basin, struck Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula in late August. During the same season, Hurricane Felix hit land just south of the border in an area between Nicaragua and Honduras last September.

AIG Travel Guard is one of America's leading providers of travel insurance as well as assistance services plans. They offer offers many resources to travelers during the hurricane season. They can assist in healing to recover vacation investments if severe weather conditions were to directly affect travelers' arrangements or accommodations. One example might be where a traveler is forced to cancel a trip due to a named hurricane. If he has a policy of travel insurance with trip cancellation coverage, it can reimburse pre-paid nonrefundable expenses. In order to apply, the coverage must be purchased before a hurricane is named. As soon as a warning is issued, the losses that might result from that named hurricane on, before or less than 14 days after the effective date of coverage are excluded.

Trip interruption coverage can make available reimbursement for unused nonrefundable expenses and additional travel expenses when a covered severe weather condition forces the evacuation of the traveler's hotel or resort.