Travel Smart: A Guide To Claim Singlife Travel Insurance

Need help with your Singlife travel insurance claims? Here's a guide on how to do them.

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Travel insurance policies can offer powerful benefits that far outweigh their cost. This is especially in the case of Singlife as it offers very holistic coverage at a very reasonable price.

With the Singlife Travel Prestige plan, the highest-tier plan, you can receive unlimited coverage for your overseas medical claims, S$8,000 coverage for loss or damaged baggage, and personal liability of up to S$2,000,000.

They also have nifty features that are unique to them, like rainfall protection of up to S$150 and trip cancellation for any reason, up to S$3,000.

These benefits only trigger when the relevant incident occurs, and you’ll need to submit a claim in order to receive your policy benefits.

While insurers strive to cover as many scenarios as possible, the nature of insurance – essentially sharing risk across a group of participants – means that it is impossible to cover every single eventuality or scenario.

Insurance providers have to manage and edit the list of incidents they cover, so as to keep the cost of insurance affordable for as many people as possible. They also have to carefully evaluate each claim to ensure that payouts are justified, as erroneous or dubious payouts will also cause the cost of insurance to go up. This is exactly the case for bigger claims like emergency travel assistance, and personal accident resulting in death or permannet disability.

There’s a lot that can go on behind the scenes in a travel insurance claim, so here's a guide if you're making a Singlife travel insurance claim.

Table of content:

• Know Your Shield: Understanding Coverage, Limits, and Conditions
• Be concise in explaining what happened
• How to claim my insurance?
  • Call your insurer
  • Gather supporting documents
  • Submit your claim
• How long does it take to process my claim?
• Conclusion: claiming peace of mind

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Know Your Shield: Understanding Coverage, Limits, and Conditions

As mentioned, your travel insurer will only approve claims that fall within strict stipulations, which makes it crucial to understand exactly what’s covered, how much and under what circumstances.

Pay attention to any explicit exclusions – general or otherwise – that are listed in your policy documents; those are generally non-negotiable and applicable policy wide.

Another thing to note is the sub-limits, which will impact how much you will receive for any one individual item (such as a laptop or tablet), or sub-category of items (such as jewellery).

These sub-limits apply even if the main benefit has not been exhausted.

For example, let’s say you have a S$5,000 maximum benefit for personal luggage, but a S$1,000 sub-limit for personal laptops.

You will only receive S$1,000 in compensation if your laptop gets damaged or stolen – even if it is the only item you are claiming for under your personal luggage benefit.

Hence, if you put in a claim for, say, S$3,000 under your personal luggage benefits, but it’s actually to cover the cost of your stolen laptop, your claim will be countered or even outright rejected.

Be concise in explaining what happened

When submitting your travel claim, you will be asked to provide an account of what happened. This is a crucial piece of information that is meant to help the person processing your claim better understand what happened.

Thus, you will want to be concise – brief, but detailed – so as to ensure the most accurate interpretation of the causes behind your claim.

As a rule, you’ll want to follow the 5 basic questions that form the basis of any report:

• Who – The persons affected and/or involved.

• What – What happened, and pertinent details. Include any contributing or underlying causes, such as negligence on the part of the operator.

• When – When did the incident happen?

• Where – Where did this take place?

• How – How did the incident affect you, or cause losses or damages to you?

Try to keep sentences short and simple as you’re describing your incident. Focus only on the facts, and leave emotion and conjecture out.

How to claim my insurance?

Call your insurer

You've never ran into any mishap overseas before but suddenly you do. You're at a lost. Who do you call first? Singlife.

Whether you need advice on which hospital to go to, the nearest police station and the necessary documents to process the claim, you should give Singlife a call at +65 6460 9391 for any assistance you need.

This 24/7 hotline will be extremely useful in situations like when you lose your travel documents or need emergency medical evacuation immediately.

Gather supporting documents

Supporting documents are vital in ensuring a successful travel insurance claim, but it can be difficult to understand what documents you should obtain – especially when dealing with an emergency or disruptions to your trip.

These are some supporting documents that Singlife requires:

In particular, you’ll also want to seek refunds or compensation from airlines, tour agents, hotels and other operators. Your request will likely be denied, but you should include their response with your claim anyway.

This is because insurers may operate on a “last resort” basis, which means they may only accept your claim after all other avenues have been exhausted – including asking for refunds or compensation from airlines and tour operators.

Hence, if you submit your claim with no indication of prior attempts to seek refunds or compensation from operators, your insurer may request that you do so before proceeding with the processing of your claim, causing a delay.

Submit your claim

Once your documents are compiled, you may submit your Singlife travel insurance claim online here.

This is the only way to submit claims as Singlife discourages submitting your claims in-person at their service centres. Do make sure that all necessary documents are submitted to avoid any possible delays.

How long does it take to process my claim?

You'll receive an email confirmation within 3 working days of you sbmitting your claim. If they require any further documents, Singlife will get in touch with you within 20 working days.

When successful, you'll be notified via email and receive the payout via PayNow within 3 business days.

Claiming peace of mind

As long as you have the necessary documents and have done everything you're required to, your claim will most likely be approved unless otherwise stated.

If you need assistance, you can get in touch with Singlife by calling them at 68279966 or email them at gi_claims@singlife.com.

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