Key things to know about emergency hotel accommodation cover in car insurance

With health and safety concerns motivating more Indians to purchase a four-wheeler for personal transport, it has become even more important to understand the intricacies of car insurance.

While it is advised to complement a car purchase with a comprehensive car insurance cover, there are add-on covers like Emergency Hotel Accommodation which can be extremely beneficial in specific situations.

This cover can safeguard the owner and passengers travelling in a vehicle, in scenarios where the vehicle faces an accident or is stolen at a location far away from the registered address.

Imagine you are on a road trip or travelling to a destination with your loved ones and your vehicle meets with an accident that deems it inoperable. The first thing on your mind would be to secure yourself and the vehicle’s occupants, especially if the accident occurs at night or in a secluded area.

In such circumstances, an Emergency Hotel Accommodation add-on cover provides you with the benefit of covering hotel stay expenses for the vehicle’s occupants, till the time the vehicle is recovered safely and transferred to the

insurer’s authorised network garage for further repairs. The same assistance is applicable if the vehicle is stolen from a place that is away from your base location and you need to safeguard your co-travellers while you report the incident to the nearest police station or complete any other formalities.

Designed to provide peace of mind and offer support in difficult situations, an Emergency Hotel Accommodation add-on cover is usually accompanied with certain conditions that are clearly stated in the policy document. Depending on the insurer, a minimum distance is applicable from the insured’s registered

address beyond which if any accident or theft incident occurs, the insurance company will make an allowance towards hotel accommodation of the insured.

This allowance is meant to pay for the cost of overnight stay and is provided during the OD policy coverage period. Additionally, it is important for the insured to maintain documentary evidence of the expenditure in the form of a hotel tax invoice and needs to be submitted to the insurance company for further payment processing. However, if for any reason the insurance claim is deemed to be invalid or inadmissible by the insurance company, the same treatment will be extended to the Emergency Hotel Accommodation add-on cover as well.

Unlike most add-on covers that are linked to the Insured Declared Value (IDV) of the vehicle, an Emergency Hotel Accommodation cover is priced depending on the maximum amount of allowance that the insurer will be liable to pay towards hotel stay expenses. This amount is clearly stated in the policy document, along with the additional premium associated with it. It is highly recommended to include this vital add-on cover to ensure complete peace of mind for yourself and your family members when travelling together on a vacation or to far-away destinations.