Does one absolutely need and benefit from having travel insurance?
Travel insurance is a smart investment if you want to protect the funds you’ve set up for your vacation. After paying for transportation, lodging, food, and entertainment, you have every right to be wary of adding yet additional expense to your vacation budget. Travel insurance is not a must-have, but it can be a good idea if you can’t afford to lose that cash in an unexpected situation.
Squaremouth, a comparison website for travel insurance, reports that the average cost of an insured trip is $5,453. Insurance for a trip cost an average of $252. A lengthy weekend getaway could cost much less than that, or you could be planning something much fancier. The average cost of travel insurance is between five and six percent of the cost of your trip.
What Does Travel Insurance Include?
If something unforeseen happens before or while you’re away, travel insurance will help cover the costs.
Travel insurance for trip cancellation
You might have to cancel your vacation before you’ve even finished packing your sunscreen and swimwear if something unexpected happens, like the tour company going out of business, you getting sick, or a family member passing away. If something like this happens to you, trip cancellation coverage on your travel insurance policy will reimburse you for any money you’ve already spent on your trip that you can’t get back.
You might have to cancel your vacation before you’ve even finished packing your sunscreen and swimwear if something unexpected happens, like the tour company going out of business, you getting sick, or a family member passing away. If something like this happens to you, trip cancellation coverage on your travel insurance policy will reimburse you for any money you’ve already spent on your trip that you can’t get back.
Travel insurance that allows you to cancel for any reason
You can only collect on trip cancellation insurance if you cancel for one of the reasons specifically listed in your policy. Further cancellation protection is available in the form of “cancel for any reason” travel insurance.
If you need to cancel your trip within 48 hours of your scheduled departure, you will be eligible for a refund. Perhaps you’ve opted to stay put and go to your high school reunion instead of traveling. The price of a standard travel insurance policy might increase by as much as 50 percent when CFAR coverage is included. The standard mileage reimbursement rate is 75%.
Emergency travel medical insurance
In the event of a medical emergency, your trip to Argentina or Zambia for a safari could be canceled. It might potentially devastate your budget.
There are a lot of American health insurance plans that don’t cover you if you leave the country. If you are harmed or sick while traveling, you’ll have to foot the bill for your own medical care, which isn’t as unlikely as you may assume. Allianz, a provider of travel insurance, says it receives more than 4,000 calls annually from customers experiencing medical emergencies abroad.
Doctor’s visits, hospital stays, medications, diagnostic tests, and surgical procedures are all covered by travel medical insurance up to the policy maximum.
Travel insurance for medical evacuation
Think about being airlifted off a Swiss mountain after a hiking mishap, recovering from a heart attack in Colombia, or bringing a broken hip from Jamaica back home to the states.
Allianz estimates that the average cost of a medical evacuation by helicopter or ambulance from a foreign country is between $15,000 and $200,000. The cost of the actual treatment itself is not included here.
Medical emergency necessitating evacuation Medical evacuation to the nearest suitable institution, or even returning to the United States for more specialized care, is covered by most comprehensive travel insurance policies. Travelers’ insurance may also pay for the repatriation of their bodies to the United States in the event of their untimely demise while abroad.
One of the more generous plans is HTH Worldwide’s TripProtector Preferred, which covers medical expenses up to $500,000 and medical evacuation costs up to $1 million.
Missed connection travel insurance
Not making a flight connection could turn out to be rather costly. If you are forced to miss your connecting flight due to an occurrence covered by your policy, the insurance company will reimburse you for your expenses.
This would make up for any travel delays of three, six, or twelve hours due to things like mechanical issues on airplanes or storms that prevent cruise ships from arriving on time. The reimbursement is designed to compensate for the cost of completing a trip or cruise that was missed.
For example, TravelSafe’s Classic package offers $2,500 after three hours of missed connections.
Flight cancellation travel insurance
Flight cancellations caused by inclement weather, such as storms and blizzards, are often covered by flight insurance. However, with airline cancellations becoming increasingly regular for a number of causes and issues, it may be worthwhile to get flight cancellation travel insurance.
If the grounds for the cancellation are not covered by ordinary travel insurance, travel insurance for airline cancellations may compensate your forfeited, non-refundable trip charges.
Insurance for travel delays
Trip delays are a major source of frustration for many visitors. An insurance policy that includes travel delay coverage may reimburse you for meals and lodging if your flight is delayed due to an insured event, such as bad weather or a mechanical failure. There is often a $150-$200 range for daily coverage.
The Safe Travels Voyager plan from Trawick International, for instance, reimburses you up to $2,000 for delays of five hours or more at a rate of $150 per day.
You may be reimbursed for any prepaid, non-refundable trip expenditures that you were unable to utilize, or you may be able to use the money to get back to where you were before the delay.
Insurance for luggage
You may be reimbursed for any prepaid, non-refundable trip expenditures that you were unable to utilize, or you may be able to use the money to get back to where you were before the delay.
Baggage insurance also covers personal belongings, so if your bag is stolen, you may submit a claim. Be aware that baggage insurance only covers the depreciated worth of your items, not the expense of replacing them with new ones. Some commodities are also subject to exclusions and limitations.
The delay of checked luggage is also covered by several forms of travel insurance. While waiting for your luggage, you may need to buy necessities like clothing and hygiene products, and this insurance may help cover those costs. It’s important to remember that there is a cutoff time before you can start collecting on your delayed luggage rewards.
Here are some examples of luggage delay coverage provided by some of the finest travel insurance providers rated by Forbes Advisor:
Plans from HTH Global TripProtector Preferred, John Hancock Insurance Agency Gold, and Seven Corners RoundTrip Elite all cost $400, $500, and $600, respectively, after a five-hour wait.
After 10 hours of delay, the price of Trawick International’s Secure Travels Voyager plan is $600; for USI Affinity Travel Insurance’s Select Elite plan, the price is $500.
When considering the total cost of your vacation and the potential for unexpected events, the cost of travel insurance is rather small.
What Does Travel Insurance Exclude?
Unfortunately, many unforeseeable circumstances are not covered by standard travel insurance. It’s there in case something happens to your trip and you wind up losing money.
Cancellation benefits, for example, are only paid out if a trip is canceled due to an event specifically covered by the insurance, such as an illness or a natural disaster. In other words, you cannot file a claim on a standard trip cancellation insurance policy if you just decide not to go on your vacation. CFAR insurance is required for that purpose.
You should read the fine print of your policy and become familiar with the things that are not covered by your insurance before you leave on your trip.
Medical claims exclusions, for example, often include the following:
Procedures of Free Will Care for mental health issues on a voluntary basis Practice of risky or extreme sports Rehabilitation through Physical Methods Checkups at the doctor and the dentist every six months Constant pregnancies
However, most travel insurance policies won’t cover hurricane damage unless you buy it before the storm is identified.
When Is Travel Insurance Beneficial?
In general, travel insurance is worthwhile to consider if:
Your journey expense is much more than you can afford to lose.
You are going overseas You are visiting a distant location with few close health care facilities
You are visiting a hurricane-prone nation.
You’ve arranged a lot of pre-paid, non-refundable excursions, day trips, and activities.
Your journey will include connecting flights or several locations.
You want to be paid for cancellations and medical concerns caused by Covid when traveling overseas.
You want to be compensated in part if you have to cancel your vacation or return home early for whatever reason.
When Is Travel Insurance Not Required?
Generally speaking, you shouldn’t need travel insurance if you are not making a sizable non-refundable deposit on your vacation and your health insurance covers you wherever you go.
For example, if you’re just taking a cheap domestic trip, you might not need travel insurance. A long weekend getaway with friends to see a show and do some shopping certainly won’t involve many non-refundable expenses. Furthermore, your health insurance will cover any necessary medical care should you become ill or injured while visiting the United States. In that case, maybe you don’t need the travel insurance after all.
If your credit card offers complimentary travel insurance, you may not need to purchase additional coverage. Be sure you have adequate travel coverage by contacting your credit card company before making any vacation plans.
Not all baggage insurance is primary; in those cases, you must first file a claim with your airline or homeowners’ insurance before turning to the secondary policy. You may not need checked-baggage insurance if you are taking only a few essential items, packing lightly, and traveling directly.
