It's February in Ontario. Snow covered roads, blustery winds and snow flurries make many of us dream about escaping somewhere warm. Once you've turned the dream into reality by booking the trip, purchasing new summer clothing items along with sunscreen and bug spray, made sure your passports are current and ready to go, you may suddenly realize that you haven't purchased travel insurance for your upcoming trip.

I have met with many people over the course of my career who opted to travel without travel and medical emergency insurance. The excuses range from: "I'm only gone for the weekend, just taking in the football game for one night", "I'm at the peak of my health" and of course, "Why should I? - it's a rip-off and they won't pay out on claims".

The reality is that the moment you leave Canada, you should ensure that you have some form of emergency medical travel insurance - even for only one night away. Short duration trips might be covered completely by your credit card insurance but their limitations are usually trips of no longer then 5-7 days away. For longer duration trips, I recommend that you consider either utilizing the emergency travel benefit that comes with your company health and dental plan or purchasing your own private travel insurance.

If you're planning on multiple trips in the course of a year, you could opt to purchase an annual plan. Also remember to purchase additional coverage such as trip cancellation and interruption, and baggage loss coverage. One can also purchase special risk coverage if you plan to be doing activities considered risky by the insurance business, such as heli-skiing, deep sea diving or piloting your own airplane, for example.

When purchasing your own travel insurance policy, you have to remember that in order for all pre-existing medical conditions to be covered during your trip away, there has to be a stability period of anywhere from seven to 365 days prior to boarding your flight for these conditions to be covered by your plan. If you still purchase the coverage but do not demonstrate stability of these conditions (e.g. a visit to ER within that period of time),you risk not having coverage for that particular condition during your trip. Having said that, there are now special risk insurers on the marketplace who will insure people who do not satisfy the stability period requirement for a particular condition (e.g. cardiovascular) which offers them complete coverage for a slightly higher premium.

There is a solution for everybody travelling when it comes to finding the right insurance product and carrier for travel insurance, but it's definitely not a one shoe fits all type of product.

Although the risk of problems occurring during travel increases significantly as we age, I am reminded of the story of an Ontario resident, aged 24 at the time, who while travelling through Italy, slipped and fell one evening on a boat and sustained a serious head injury which required serious medical intervention in a hospital there. Because this person travelled without travel insurance, the family had to resort to crowdfunding campaigns to raise enough money to help pay for the medical care which she received in Europe.

So please make sure to leave with peace of mind that you have a good emergency medical travel insurance policy in hand.