Ensuring Peace of Mind: The Critical Role of Travel Insurance with Ben Camille

Embark on a journey of discovery with us, Z Michelson, and my ever-so-keen accomplice, Jay Lawrence, as we navigate the essential world of travel insurance, side by side with Ben Camille from Travel Defend. Our conversation begins with a touch of humor but quickly focuses on the critical topic of protecting your travel adventures. As a travel advisor, I'm often chanting the mantra of the necessity for travel insurance, a lesson more poignant in the wake of COVID-19's chaos. Ben walks us through his transition from luxury tour operator to insurance maestro, highlighting how Travel Defend has become a beacon of reassurance for wanderlust souls.

Sift through the complexities of travel insurance policies with us as I, armed with my travel advisor hat, unravel the intricacies of choosing the right protection plan for your trips. We stress the importance of primary coverage over secondary and why it's crucial for every traveler's peace of mind. Drawing from real-life narratives, I emphasize the stark reality of the unexpected turns one might face without the security blanket of a robust insurance policy. By sharing these stories, our aim is to arm you with the knowledge to safeguard your journey from start to finish.

Finally, we shift the lens to the personal impact travel holds, from cultural enlightenment to the simple joys of sampling new cuisines. We invite our listeners to share their own cherished travel experiences and tips, fostering a community of globe-trotting enthusiasts. Together with Ben, we advocate for the undervalued yet indispensable role of travel insurance in ensuring that your only worry while abroad is whether to choose the window or the aisle seat. So, join us on this adventure of learning, and let's keep dreaming big and traveling smarter.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Z Michelson Travel Podcast. This podcast is devoted to the travel industry. Z says let your imagination run wild and start dreaming about where you want to go. And dream big, reach for the stars, and if you only get to the moon, at least you enjoyed the trip. Your guide to travel is Z Michelson, a travel advisor, and sitting at the controls is Jay Lawrence, your concierge of podcast travel. Now here's Z.

Speaker 2: 0:26

That's me, that's me, I'm Z.

Speaker 3: 0:28

And I'm Jay Lawrence.

Speaker 2: 0:30

You are the concierge of podcast travel.

Speaker 3: 0:32

And, by the way, how do you spell your name Z-E-E? Well, I got to thinking. People may not know how to spell my name, since my name's Jay.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Oh, you think they just put the J down.

Speaker 3: 0:42

Well, I don't know, so I spell my name J-A-Y. That's right. I pick a couple more letters than you did. No, really, you didn't. I'm watching Jeopardy. It's still three of them, not Jeopardy. What's? Wheel of Fortune? Wheel of Fortune, yeah, I wanted to buy an E.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Well, you can get two E's, two. I need to buy a val. Yeah, well, you know we are. You're the podcast, we go through this podcast and we do the travel concierge of podcast travel and today we got a guest coming with us and he's the concierge of podcast.

Speaker 3: 1:17

No, he's a concierge of travel travel insurance concierge.

Speaker 2: 1:21

That's what he goes by. Yeah, yeah, we're. We're going to be talking to him today, which is pretty cool, because you know what I say all the time Buy and travel insurance. Get insurance, get insurance, and I'm not a travel agent. I'm not an insurance agent, I'm a travel agent.

Speaker 3: 1:35

All right. Who sponsors this program, by the way?

Speaker 2: 1:38

Collage Travel Media Network sponsors this. This podcast. Yes, this podcast. Yes, the Travel Podcast.

Speaker 3: 1:44

Collage Travel Media Network. You know it's a good thing, because the teleprompter is in front of me, so I can read that.

Speaker 2: 1:51

Believe it or not, I have to read that every time.

Speaker 3: 1:53

It's incredible.

Speaker 2: 1:53

And I read what's behind you, where it says Collage Travel Radio and ZMAX Radio. There you go, that's it. Luckily we have all these prompters.

Speaker 3: 2:01

And then you're a travel advisor, I these prompters. And then you're a travel advisor, I am a travel advisor. That's what got us into the Z.

Speaker 2: 2:07

Michelson Travel Podcast and as a travel advisor, I always say get travel insurance, and I'm not an insurance agent. So I want to talk to this gentleman today, ben Camille. He's going to be coming and talking with us and he has a company called Travel Defend. Hi, ben, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 4: 2:24

Hey, thanks so much for having me. Great to be here.

Speaker 2: 2:27

So, ben, you are with a company called Travel Defend, correct? And how did that company get started?

Speaker 4: 2:34

Right. So it's an interesting story. Actually, for 17 years, prior to the last, I don't know three and a half years, I used to run luxury tours. Okay, I had a luxury tour company called upscale getaways, super high end. When we're talking high end, I mean like just for a week event. Many families would come pay upwards of one, two, three $400,000 just for a week. Okay, and so really, I'm going to make this story quick. But COVID really destroyed us, obviously, as everyone in the travel industry. Now, we were in California at the time. This was run in San Diego, rancho Bernardo and very, very high end beautiful property.

Speaker 4: 3:15

Coming back out of COVID, we realized, you know what no one is going to book these tours without travel insurance. It was just way too much money on the line and, being the type of operator that I am, I wasn't just going to like say okay, pick one off the shelf, say yeah, go use this, or whatever. I became, which is maybe a little weird, but I became very obsessed with travel insurance. I wanted to know who actually pays these bills. How does this actually work in real life, because everyone loves to sell stuff, but in real life, how does it work? Who's the? It's not a black box, like who actually pays the bills? How is this figured out? And so I really just kind of delved into it. I realized that my mind, my brain, really understood travel insurance really well and I started going to industry events. I started making all the connections, the CEOs of all these companies, which is not normal Again, most people who run a tour company are not doing this and I started to realize that I just really got into the whole vibe of travel insurance because, like when I would go at my events, right, there was food going 24 hours a day. When I would go into the kitchens I wouldn't understand anything. I don't know kitchens. Like my brain goes to mush. Something about travel insurance, like I, just because it can be very complex, it is, I don't know, I just cause it can be very complex, it is, I don't know. I just understood. I look at it like from God, like all of a sudden, like I get it.

Speaker 4: 4:27

I started selling it to my own clients. The money was crazy. I couldn't believe how much money we were making off and how easy it was. And I went to all the other tour companies in my niche and I said look, you guys are in the same boat. You have all these luxury clients. You don't know what to do. I started a company called Travel Defend. This was three and a half years ago. I said send all your people to us, we're going to take care of them. We'll kick you back, commission and we essentially that's what we do. And now we have hundreds of tour operators, thousands of clients we can go into more like cause. I think it's important to get clarity on what we do because it's very special. But that was kind of what happened. I stopped doing tours and I just went into this because it's a better business.

Speaker 2: 5:10

And you know, ben, on my show I always advocate for travel insurance. I tell all of my clients travel insurance is a must, particularly in this day and age. So tell me a little bit more about the insurance, because basically what I tell my clients is I'm not an insurance sales rep, I'm a travel advisor. Right. And I you know I say there are many insurance companies out there and you need to find the best one that will be suitable to your needs. So tell me about your insurance company.

Speaker 4: 5:36

Right. So what happens now? Typically, if you are going on a trip, you want to buy a policy, what do you do? Right, you go to Allianz, you go to AIG, you go online. You go, they'll have one or two options for you. You know, you don't know what the hell you're looking at, you don't know what you're buying. You just kind of look at something, you say fine. Or you go to SquareMouth, which is like Expedia or whatever, and you see a hundred options which, again, you know nothing. So you don do as a brokerage.

Speaker 4: 6:10

We are a concierge service, right, so most of our business is with calls. That's a heavy lifting of our business. We have access to every policy that exists in America and we're experts at all of them. Okay. So someone calls in. They say, okay, hey, I'm going to Africa $50,000 trip, by the way, we help all types. You don't have to be expensive, it's not relevant. But point is, let's just use that example. We want to make sure our 50 grand is protected. We want to make sure medically God forbid something happens to us in Africa we're protected. We don't know what to buy, we don't know what to do. So we'll guide you, we'll get the information. I have a whole staff here now We'll do the paperwork for you and then, most importantly this is really most important we make sure you get paid and are protected in real life.

Speaker 4: 6:44

Okay, at this point, we bring millions of dollars to these insurance companies. We have tremendous power. In many of them, we have our own dedicated claims analysts, people that are on the payroll of the insurance company, but they're dedicated just to us, because we have thousands and thousands of clients, which is awesome. I don't even pay for it, but they're basically my person within the company. We have a WhatsApp that we set up with our clients monitor 24 hours a day Any issue you have. Let's say, god forbid, someone breaks a leg. Whatever you reach out, we'll guide you, we'll take care of you. We can call the CEOs of these companies and we don't add a penny to the cost. We don't add anything, and so there's no reason ever not to use us, obviously, if you need travel insurance, but that's where I'm coming from and I think it's important for the perspective. When I'm answering these questions, I'm coming from it as an expert at every policy in America, not trying to push one particular one, because there are many good options for different travelers.

Speaker 2: 7:38

I'm going to, I'm going to back you up a little. You don't add a penny to the cost. You want to explain that a little bit more.

Speaker 4: 7:43

Sure, when you, let's say, you're going on a trip and you would look and put in your date of birth, put in where you're going, how expensive is your trip, and you would get a cost of $500, let's say, right On one particular obviously they're all different, but let's say we're looking at one, okay, I could sell you that exact same policy for the exact same price, for that $500. And now you're not alone, you're not, you know, on your own, not to just I'm not saying this to offend you but to the insurance company. You're nothing.

Speaker 4: 8:12

Okay, you, they don't know who you are, they don't care about you. With us, we have a lot of power here. I mean, I can call the even the I. Actually, on Friday and two days from now, I have a huge meeting with a CEO of one of these, one of these billion dollar companies, helping one of our clients in a very serious situation. So the point is is that you know there's no benefit to buying on your own Cause you know you're, you're kind of like don't know what you're doing and we don't add any costs. We get a commission from the insurance company. We get a massive commission. Okay, we do crazy volume, and so that grew over time, but the commission levels we get are beyond crazy.

Speaker 2: 8:48

So, basically, what you're doing is you you are working with all of the insurance companies that are out there and finding the best policies that will suit the traveler's needs. Now, do you work directly with the traveler or directly with the travel advisor, or both?

Speaker 4: 9:03

Typically, what we like to do is that the travel agent, let's say, or the tour operator, simply tells all their clients if you need travel insurance, call Travel Defend, they will help you. Travel advisors most of them are not licensed. I would say a strong 99% of them are not licensed. Tour operators know nothing. Obviously they're focused on their tours and so really we don't want people answering questions. Oftentimes, travel agents try and answer questions and they're very often wrong. People come in with wrong answers, right? Oh, I thought I was. No, you're not. And so the point is we would rather no one say anything. Just send them to us and we'll start from scratch and help these people.

Speaker 2: 9:46

Well, I kind of like that idea, because that's usually what I'm talking about. I usually say I am not an insurance broker, I'm a travel advisor and I'm also a travel agent.

Speaker 4: 9:56

It's a life. It's a life work. To be an expert at travel insurance is actually very difficult, and so when anyone tells me my travel agent told me, I'm like crap, it means nothing, he knows nothing, doesn't matter who it is. That's 99.9% of the time.

Speaker 2: 10:13

So my best bet would be, when I get a client that's going to say Africa or going to do those world cruises, I would actually say, okay, you need to get some insurance, call you.

Speaker 4: 10:24

Call our team Travel Defend. What does that mean?

Speaker 2: 10:30

by tie it together, so how do you know? It's my client coming to you.

Speaker 4: 10:34

Sure. So there's two ways to do that. Either I can give you a link, which, again, is not how most people buy, because they really want to talk right. And so you know we have a pull down of all of our partners, so our team can't even put a policy through without indicating which partner it's with and we'll say, okay, who sent you to us? And they'll say, well, z sent us. And we're like, okay, cool, and because you know we set this up with you in the pull down of I created a portal that is awesome I mean, it's so detailed which is also a whole other conversation of how we have all the data and how helpful it is.

Speaker 2: 11:11

I know I've opened up your website to take a peek at it before we got on the phone today, so you know, like I said, everything I say everybody has to have travel insurance. It's the best for them.

Speaker 4: 11:23

I'm so paranoid now. I mean really. I see sickness, injury hospitals. If you work with us for a week you'll freak out. You won't believe what goes on.

Speaker 2: 11:31

It's crazy, I would believe it just by some of the people that I had, experiences that I've heard and did and I've seen that it's Luckily they had insurance and it's like, see, I told you they had insurance, so it worked, it helps.

Speaker 2: 11:45

People don't realize how much it can help, particularly if they're spending a lot of money on that once-in-a-lifetime trip. They don't want it to go south and there's so many different things that can come into play whether they get sick right before they go or right after they go. A friend of mine was in Turkey and he fell down a flight of stairs and he busted up his shoulder pretty good. Luckily he had insurance because he had to go to the hospital. I mean he couldn't travel like that.

Speaker 2: 12:14

So I mean, when you're, when you're dealing with the client, what do you basically tell them to look for, or what are you looking for for them?

Speaker 4: 12:23

Well, we look at where they're going. Number one if they're going to Africa, that's a different deal than if they're going to the United Kingdom. Right, okay, what state do they live in? We have it down to such a granular science that I can say okay, you live in New York. What company in America pays out New York residents at the highest rate, which means who's easiest to pay? And so we can look at that. And then, of course, once we know that, which we know we know that already we foster relationships there so that when we get a New York based client, we already have, let's say, our dedicated claims people at these companies, because we already have done all the work.

Speaker 4: 13:00

People sometimes think, because it's so smooth the way we do things, that we just pick a policy out of a hat. I mean, you give me your information within two seconds I'm going to tell you okay, it's $574. This is what you're going with. And they just think well, what about all the other options? We've already done all that work. I already know every option in America. Meaning, I'm making sure you have primary coverage, not secondary coverage. I don't know how deep you want to get into this and go very deep. I'm making sure you have the correct medical. I know every company, which ones are easy to pay, which ones are very difficult to deal with, and so we, kind of you know, go through all those factors very quickly. But we have it down at this point.

Speaker 3: 13:37

So it's primary and secondary and correct medical coverage. I mean, I don't know what's in there, so please tell us more Sure.

Speaker 4: 13:46

Primary coverage concept is probably the most important concept that exists in travel insurance. Okay, primary coverage means from step one, the insurance company is saying that it's their obligation to pay you, which is what you think you're buying when you buy travel insurance. You think they're going to pay you. If you have secondary coverage, which many companies Allianz for one hides it in the fine print. You don't know because it's a 57-page document. You don't know what you bought. If it's secondary coverage, unwittingly you've given the insurance company the right to point the finger elsewhere before paying you and say, yeah, maybe we'll pay, maybe someone else is more responsible to pay that guy over there.

Speaker 4: 14:23

And now you're in a world of hell and you don't even know that you were in a world of hell and now getting you paid is very tough, okay. So again, that's not a big thing. I mean, that doesn't add tons of cost or anything. It's not a cost issue. It's just knowing which policies have it, which policies don't. So that's like like a one um, always primary coverage for many New York residents New York is weird with travel insurance.

Speaker 4: 14:48

You need to add it, like it's an optional add on Um, and if you don't add it, then you automatically will have secondary coverage with many policies and so there are little things that are important to know. But again, it's not a cost issue. And then having correct medical. What I recommend depending where you're going but assuming you're going somewhere exotic is a hundred thousand dollar primary medical per person. Many policies will have 10,000, 25,000, 50. This is not enough. One night in a hospital in you know like where was it? We just had a claim the other day of like Bora Bora or something like that. I mean one night in a hospital. They were giving them over $50,000 bill.

Speaker 2: 15:28

Oh yeah, and if you have to be airlifted and all of that, other things, right.

Speaker 4: 15:31

So I also want, depending on how far you're going, either $500,000 of medical evacuation or a million dollar medical evacuation. Again, depends where you're going. But again, medical is not the driver of cost here. Like if someone calls to say I don't care about my trip cost, I just want medical for a trip. It's peanuts, it's nothing, it's fine, do whatever you want, we don't push. I mean, we do thousands of these, so it's irrelevant to us. You want to do it or not.

Speaker 4: 15:59

What makes a policy expensive is an expensive trip with an old traveler. That like, if we look at a guy who calls in and he's almost 80 years old and he's going on a $50,000 trip, this is going to be super sky high. Okay, like, we just sold policies the other day two couples in their seventies I think they were like 78 or something like that Right, going to Africa, it was 90 grand a couple. Okay, that's 180,000. Now if you have 10% of trip costs, that would be 18 grand. Okay, right, this was about 20. Grants is about 11 or 12% of trip costs, which for that age is normal. Um, so they could say, well, whoa, why is it so high? It's not high, it's just a percentage of trip costs. If you were 30 years old, this will probably be, you know, 4% of trip costs, and now look at what the difference is. So really it's a function of that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2: 16:51

Now, what kind of protection does the insurance companies that you represent have other than medical insurance? You know, the medical seems like you got that kind of covered. What about all the other things that can go wrong?

Speaker 4: 17:03

Well, so let's clarify. Oh sorry, Go ahead.

Speaker 3: 17:06

Well, the things I've heard is really not the medical. It's getting back home cost.

Speaker 4: 17:12

Is that medical? When you say medical, we mean medical in-country, like doctors, hospitals, medications and also medical evacuation. Many policies will only medically evacuate you to a nearby hospital. That's safe. Most clients don't want that. They want to be able to go home. If you're from Texas, from Dallas, you want to go to the world-class medical center in Dallas, and that's the type of policies we'll typically give to people, because that's what I think is important. Now let's just clarify what travel insurance is okay, because this is going to help your mind understand it. Before the trip, what can they give you? Simply your money back. It's called trip cancellation. They can't give you anything else A hug, a kiss, I don't know they're going to give you your money back Once you're on the trip, you have all the in-trip benefits.

Speaker 4: 18:01

So that starts with, you know, trip interruption. That's again like trip cancellation, but that's giving you your money back. Let's say, in the middle of the trip you break your leg. It's a hundred thousand dollar trip. It's 10 days, so it's 10 grand a day. Okay, so halfway through just for mathematical purpose, whatever halfway through you break your leg, they'll give you 50 grand back, cause that's half you didn't get to experience of your trip. They'll also pay up to a certain amount depending on what policy you have for all your flights home and blah, blah, blah, all this kind of stuff, right? The other in-trip benefits are the medical which we talked about, and you have trip delay, bag delay, baggage loss. Okay, those are typically the type of things. There's also other random stuff like travel inconvenience and change fee, whatever. I don't know how deep you want to get into this stuff, but point is trip delay, bag delay, baggage loss very important.

Speaker 4: 18:49

Many times people don't understand and, by the way, this is where people run into major problems with claims. They don't understand the categories. So they'll file a trip interruption claim when really it's a trip delay claim and you won't get paid because insurance company in their mind. Right, they love a gray area, they love that you're confused. They'll just say, oh you're, it's tripping. Oh, you said trip. No, that's not tripping. Disruption.

Speaker 2: 19:12

Bye, so Ben do you actually help the clients when they have to file, make a filing?

Speaker 4: 19:17

Oh, big time. We have a whole claims assistance team. Basically, what we do is we send you a link it's a calendar link You'll book a time because it takes about 20 minutes, something like that and our team will start the claim on your behalf and then go over with you, line by line, what you need to provide to the insurance company, cause that's another thing. Most of these companies, they love to have you in the dark. They love you to think, well, okay, this issue happened. I imagine they're going to want to see this. I imagine they're going to want to see that and they love that.

Speaker 4: 19:47

You don't know what to give, because you're going to give it in. And then they're going to come back to you and say, oh well, you're going to give it in, and then they're going to come back to you and say, oh well, that's not what we need, you need to give this. And then you're like, okay, and then you do it, and then they go, oh well, there's more stuff we need, you know, and they love keeping you confused, and so we don't allow that to happen. We give you very clear clarity on exactly what you need to do. If you put that together, people paid in a day, two days, seven days, okay, so once you're in our mix and we give this to our dedicated claims analysts and you did it perfectly because we taught you how to do it perfectly, our claims analysts love us. Most times, people present claims, it's all. It's all crap everywhere. No one knows like what's going on. Papers are flying around. We make sure you do it perfect and you get paid fast, good.

Speaker 2: 20:38

So you kind of hold their hand all the way through the process, from beginning to end, which is kind of nice. Big time Now. There was an incident that I heard about through the vine of travel advisors and reps where somebody had passed away overseas and they actually got stuck there because they couldn't transport that person back, because they didn't have the right insurance.

Speaker 4: 21:01

Ah, wow, I will tell you. Thank God I've never had that happen to anyone of our company. I've never had anyone pass away on their trip. But typically there's, you know, 10 or 15,000. Repatriation is usually included in a policy. They must have had a very low end policy that doesn't have that.

Speaker 2: 21:18

That's what I was thinking it was like oh my gosh, you know, she got stuck there.

Speaker 4: 21:23

She had to come up with the money to get her dead husband's body shipped back to the.

Speaker 2: 21:28

United States.

Speaker 4: 21:29

That's not a fun situation, so.

Speaker 2: 21:31

I mean, insurance is very, very important. You know, if you're paying thousands and thousands of dollars for these trips, you want to make sure that you're covered, because things can happen. You know you don't want it to happen, but it could happen. But you know, one of the things that we do on our show is we always do a travel tip. So what would a travel tip be? Ben, give us one of yours.

Speaker 4: 21:55

You mean like a travel insurance type of tip or?

Speaker 2: 21:57

Whatever you got.

Speaker 4: 22:00

Travel tip. Oh man, you know, what's funny is that I know so much about travel insurance, but I never go anywhere. I never travel anywhere so don't travel. So I'm actually not. I have little kids, you know, I have like a five-year-old and a three-year-old and all this kind of stuff. So like I'm like for us to travel, it's really crazy. Give me, give me sorry to do this to you, give me an example. What's a travel tip that someone has given you? Just so I understand like what?

Speaker 2: 22:23

you're talking about? First of all, you have little kids. How give me an example of how you would, where my wife comes?

Speaker 4: 22:28

in, she'll do like. You have to literally pack up right Every type of toy, every type of diaper, every type of food, and which is why we don't go anywhere. But I guess, if I would say again what listen, I'm not maybe your typical person I'm going to sound really, really bougie when I say this If I'm traveling, I'm going five star, okay, that's my move. If I'm going to sound really really bougie when I say this If I'm traveling, I'm going five star, okay, that's my move. If I'm going somewhere, I'm going Ritz Carlton, I'm going St Regis, because I don't travel that often.

Speaker 4: 23:02

And the reason you would go to one of these is because oh gosh, it's so beautiful, I mean, if you go to the right resort, I mean it's like it's literally like paradise. You know, love it. I went to what I did do actually now that I'm thinking of it in the summer. We dropped our kids for like two days and we went to new Orleans for for a couple of days in the summer and because it was a summer, it was a hundred and billion degrees outside, so we got a four seasons for like a hundred dollars. Okay, so it was just me and my wife two, three days, whatever it was in New Orleans and I was like man, that was like awesome. I had the best time Again, once you have kids, like traveling on a plane with no kids is already luxurious. I'm just like, wow, no one's bothering me, I'm just sitting here, everyone's like looking at their movies.

Speaker 4: 23:46

I'm like sitting I don't have to look at nothing.

Speaker 2: 23:48

So your travel tip would be if you can get away from the kids and everybody could go, just you and your spouse, yeah because, also now that I think of it, years ago I went to Arizona.

Speaker 4: 23:58

Okay, in the summer. That's the travel tip. You can go to the best hotels in the world for like a hundred bucks. That's a great travel tip. Go in the summer. Who cares about the heat? It's not that bad.

Speaker 2: 24:09

And get a better price point.

Speaker 4: 24:10

That's actually the best travel tip out there.

Speaker 2: 24:13

Well, ben, I appreciate you coming, and if somebody wants to find out more because I have travel advisors and travel agents that listen I also have travelers that listen. If they want to find out more, can you want to give your website?

Speaker 4: 24:25

Yeah, so we're TravelDefendcom. No hyphens, nothing weird, straight up TravelDefendcom. You would imagine that would cost in this day and age like 50 grand to get a website like that right Anytime you put in any website, taken, taken. We somehow got that for a penny years ago. So that's cool. But travel defendcom, give us a call 1-800-578-2871. We really have a whole team standing by, but any travel advisors the last thing I would leave you with is this is the truth they know they know nothing about travel insurance. That's like honest. If you really care about your clients in a real way and you know that the core of your business is not making money off travel insurance, it's making money off trips and all these things, just send your people to us, let us handle them. The people will appreciate you, they'll be happy. You don't have to deal with a midnight call. I'm in Spain, I'm in Barcelona. My husband just threw up everywhere. We deal with that, okay, and you don't have to, and then we give you commission anyway. So that's the idea.

Speaker 2: 25:23

I like that, ben, I like that. Well, thank you for joining us today. I appreciate it.

Speaker 4: 25:30

And we.

Speaker 3: 25:32

Well, he certainly has convinced me that I need travel insurance, even if I'm crossing the road.

Speaker 2: 25:38

Yeah, I know, but you know, what I like about this is he deals with all of the different travel insurance companies, yeah, and he knows the ins and outs of each one and what you're going to need when you go on those trips. Yeah, so you know, because you could be going from here to Peru or you can be going from here to Africa. Everything is different.

Speaker 3: 26:00

Well, yeah, and the first question is where are you going?

Speaker 2: 26:02

Right, where are you going? Yeah, what state are you from and how much are you paying?

Speaker 3: 26:06

Yeah, and how much are you paying? Yeah, but that's important. And then if I have a claim, they could help me file the claim.

Speaker 2: 26:16

Yes, they can help you because you know insurance is insurance is insurance and everybody knows every now and then you have to file a claim on whatever type of insurance and you kind of pull your hair out of your head with all those papers and they actually hold your hand and walk you through the system and how to do it. So that's a good thing. I loved the conversation we had with him and there's so much more he had to talk about. Ah, that's my trivia music, so are you ready for your next trivia question, jay?

Speaker 3: 26:46

Am I ever? I almost got one right the other day.

Speaker 2: 26:50

Did you?

Speaker 3: 26:50

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:52

And I don't even know where my trivia question went. I know, let me see if I can ask you a trivia question. Go ahead.

Speaker 3: 26:59

It has something to do with a Christmas island or something.

Speaker 2: 27:03

Ah, yes, so where is Christmas Island? Is the trivia question today.

Speaker 3: 27:09

It's east of Orlando Florida.

Speaker 2: 27:14

It could be west of Orlando Florida.

Speaker 3: 27:17

It's called Christmas Florida. No that of Orlando Florida, it's called Christmas Florida.

Speaker 2: 27:20

No, that's Christmas Florida, not Christmas Island.

Speaker 3: 27:23

Oh you tricked me.

Speaker 2: 27:26

Well, the question answered is Australia. Oh really, yeah, they have a little island called Christmas Island.

Speaker 3: 27:34

Well, there's another island called Australia, right? I mean, we originally talked at one of the trivia questions called.

Speaker 2: 27:36

Christmas Island. Well, there's another island called Australia, right? I mean, we originally talked at one of the trivia questions regarding the longest plane flight, which was from New York to Singapore. Yeah, because Australia is a bit of a long schlep. But yeah, I'd like to see Christmas Island. That would be cool.

Speaker 3: 27:50

Question.

Speaker 2: 27:51

Answer.

Speaker 3: 27:52

Is there a direct flight from Orlando, Florida to?

Speaker 2: 27:56

Australia. I don't believe so I would have to double check that. I don't think there's a direct flight. I think you have to go. You fly West.

Speaker 3: 28:04

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:05

Yeah, you fly West, but I know there's a direct flight from Orlando to Hawaii.

Speaker 3: 28:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:11

Which that would be long. That's a long flight because it's about five and a half six hours to get to California and then another five, about five and a half six hours to get to California and then another five, five and a half hours to get to Hawaii. So you're figuring about 12 hours.

Speaker 3: 28:24

All right. That's enough trivia for today.

Speaker 2: 28:26

That's enough trivia for today. So you've had your trivia. So we all have to get over to Australia Go see the kangaroos.

Speaker 3: 28:33

Aye, aye, Mike and the wallabies and put it on the body.

Speaker 2: 28:38

What's the song that they always sing? Waltzing Matilda.

Speaker 3: 28:41

Or tie your kangaroo down mate.

Speaker 2: 28:43

Right, tie your kangaroo down, boy. And then there's Waltzing Matilda. Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda. Do we have that? Can we play it?

Speaker 2: 28:53

Well, as you know, there is so much traveling to do, so little time to do it in. So tune in every week for more travel info, insights and just plain old fun. Please follow me and like me on Facebook. Do you have a favorite location? I'd like to hear from you An interesting tip.

Speaker 2: 29:09

Let me know, because I can actually post it and we can talk about it on the air. You can send it to my email, which is ZMichelson at gmailcom, and Z is spelt Z-E-E. I'm also very excited to let everybody know my podcast can be heard on all your favorite podcast players, so feel free to give me a review. I'd love to hear what you had to say. Thanks for listening today. Traveling truly opens up the world to you. You learn all about the different cultures, the lifestyles and, of course, food. Then you realize we truly are all the same. So dream, dream big, reach for the stars, and if you only get to the moon, at least you made the trip. If you're looking for great places to travel to, feel free to visit my website, zmichelsontravelcom. Z again is spelled Z-E-E. This is Z Michelson, making your travel dreams come true.