For any misstep we make while traveling, the consequences are almost always greatly amplified.

We’re separated from family and friends, familiar medical facilities, and doctors who know our medical history. We don’t even have our own couch or bed to chill out and recuperate on.

But with some help from Allyz® TravelSmart, getting injured or sick while traveling can be met with the same confidence we have in our own backyard.

That’s because the Allianz Global Assistance team endeavored to create an app that did more than simply streamline the use of your travel insurance plan. We created a free app that to help all travelers troubleshoot getting injured or sick while traveling — including medical emergencies of all shapes and sizes.

Let’s take a closer look at Allyz TravelSmart’s features, how it can work hand in hand with travel insurance, and how it can bail you out in some hypothetical travel scenarios.

Allyz® TravelSmart Features to Help When You’re Injured or Sick While Traveling

Many companies design apps that are only useful for their paying customers. And yes, Allyz TravelSmart can supercharge your travel insurance experience by bringing up your plan in a few swipes, showing your claim status, and even providing an updated flight status.

But it also performs a number of functions that can help you or a travel companion when you’re sick while traveling or experiencing another real medical emergency.

Here are some of the actions Allyz® TravelSmart helps facilitate:

• Find hospitals anywhere. Locate pre-screened facilities and the best way to get there.
• Overcome the language barrier. Allyz TravelSmart provides translation for popular prescription and First Aid terms in 18 languages.
• Connect with emergency services. Don’t know 9-1-1 in Tunisia? Not to worry. We’ve put local emergency contact numbers at your fingertips.
• Getting 24/7 Assistance. While our on-call travel experts can assist with a number of functions — even some of those listed above — they’re also the ones who can help set in motion some of a travel insurance plan’s “bigger lifts” for covered events. These include Emergency Medical benefits and Emergency Medical Transportation, an otherwise complicated and costly travel detour that we have vast experience managing.¹

Before reading on, take a moment to download the Allyz® TravelSmart app.

Level Up Allyz® TravelSmart With Travel Insurance

While you don’t need to be an Allianz Global Assistance customer to enjoy many of the benefits of Allyz TravelSmart, when the two join forces the lifeline increases exponentially.

For starters, all of our travel insurance plans come with the 24-Hr. Assistance benefit you just read about. That’s multilingual assistance accessible directly from Allyz TravelSmart on your mobile device.

From there, our travel insurance plans offer various benefits designed for a range of budgets and itineraries — some of which are critical for emergency situations. For example, Emergency Medical provides benefits for losses due to covered emergencies. And Emergency Medical Transportation handles medically necessary transportation to the nearest medical facility.

These benefits are critical in the event that you or a member of your travel party experience a medical emergency in a remote corner of a foreign land — or even on a plane while taxing to the runway. We recommend that you think about your destination, your current health status, and what you’ll be doing at your destination when assessing the right-fit benefit maximum amounts. For example, if you’re flying to Cleveland for a business trip, the OneTrip Basic plan’s $10,000 Emergency Medical limit and $50,000 Emergency Transportation limit may be enough to handle sickness and injuries on the road. But if you’re heading to Kuala Lumpur to explore subterranean Hindu temples at the Baku Caves, the OneTrip Prime plan’s increased benefits of $25,000 and $500,00, accordingly, may be the smarter move.²

Take a moment and find the right travel insurance plan to protect you in case you encounter an emergency.

How to Handle Medical Emergencies While Traveling

Now that you know how Allyz TravelSmart can come to your rescue, let’s walk through a few hypothetical travel emergencies to see just how it can work:

• Lost Medication in São Paulo
  You would think finding a pharmacy in the Brazilian city of 19 million would be easy, right? But what about a 24-hr. pharmacy that carries medication that’s rare outside the United States — and where the pharmacist speaks English, not Portuguese? With Allyz TravelSmart’s “Around Me” feature, you’ll find pre-screened pharmacies and directions to get there. Access the built-in medical translator to communicate with the pharmacist and ensure you have the right medication. And if you’re still having trouble, you’re just a touch away from Allianz Global Assistance’s 24-hr. Travel Assistance.^{3, 4}

• A Sprained Knee While Hiking the Carpathians
  Romania is a beautiful country, especially the small towns dotted throughout the Carpathian Mountains (Transylvania is much more welcoming than legend suggests). But it’s also isolating, with vast tracts of uninhabited forests. It’s a great place for a spiritual journey, but if you’re traveling alone, it’s potentially a dangerous one. Choosing the wrong rock to put your weight on or tripping over a hidden tree root can mean you need to gather your wits and come up with a plan — fast.⁵ Fortunately, you’ve enabled your geolocation in Allyz TravelSmart, giving you instant access to local emergency services — even if they are dozens of miles away.⁴ Meanwhile, you can go ahead and contact the world-class team at 24-hr. Travel Assistance. There’s a good chance you may need to put both your Emergency Medical and Emergency Transportation benefits to work to get you out of this pickle — and they’ll get it started. While you’re waiting for help to arrive, don’t think about the fact that you’re in Transylvania and the full moon is already peeking from behind the sunset. Instead, do some Googling and you might find that it’s a good thing you have travel insurance — because odds are your U.S.-based health insurance wouldn’t get you very far. And that air ambulance en route to take you to top-notch medical facility could have cost more than $100,000 out of pocket.⁶

Without a fully functional crystal ball, getting injured or sick while traveling — and all medical emergencies — are tough to avoid. (That said, Allyz TravelSmart’s Location-Based Alerts do a great job of sharing important events and updates specific to your area.)¹ And while you may not need to access travel insurance benefits specifically designed to help out during a medical emergency, imagine the peace of mind you’ll have.

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• How the Allyz® TravelSmart App Can Help Make Your Trips Safer