Travel Insurance: When to Skip it and When to Get it

When you purchase insurance, be it health insurance, homeowners, auto, or life, or even travel insurance, it’s hard not to see it as an added investment with the dangers of more money coming out of your pocket. However, with any insurance it is always in your best interest to shop around and compare plans, to ensure you have weighed out all options. Travel insurance is there for sharing risk in case of unforeseen catastrophic events take place, but it is all about when you should and should not be purchasing it. Use this simplified guide as a place to start, a tool to help you come to a conclusion on the decision-making process.

Is Purchasing Travel Insurance Necessary?

It is important to ask yourself questions like, do you need a pool of resources from others’ premiums to help you out in the event of a travel emergency? Or can you take care of any unforeseen circumstance on your own? It’s not just about money, either when considering travel insurance.

Imagine, you’re in Europe and neither you nor your spouse speak any foreign language and your wallet is stolen. Your credit cards, your airline tickets, your passport, and your money are all gone. What do you do now? Money may not be the primary problem here as you can always call your bank and have a wire transfer completed. Or can you?

Do you know the international rules and capabilities for this? Where are the banks and do the tellers speak English? What about replacing your airline tickets? What about money to get to the airport and check out of your hotel? Your passports are the primary issue probably. They took a very long time to get. Now you can’t get out of the country without them. Where do you go to replace them? If you had known this was going to happen, how would you have answered the question, “is purchasing travel insurance smart?”

Imagine if your child is involved in an accident and must have medical assistance but you find out your insurance does not cover you outside of the United States, and medical care is not adequate where you are anyway. How do you get your child back to the United States for medical care? If you had known this was going to happen, how would you have answered the question, “is purchasing travel insurance smart?” The safest time to have it considerably, would be for any medical reasons when traveling, for cruises, and international trips.

When Is Purchasing Travel Insurance Unnecessary?

If you are considering your vacation as an investment, then insuring for just that investment is most likely not going to be worth it for you. While purchasing travel insurance may help, consider the following as to why it would not be beneficial to you:

• If you are traveling within the U.S. or doing a road trip, then you most likely do not need the extra insurance and investment added on to the trip. If you already have medical insurance, then coverage for emergencies are already in place.

• Nowadays, flights are getting cancelled left and right, even all the way up until you are about to board. It may be tempting to want to purchase travel or trip cancellation insurance especially if it is not a short and cheap flight. However, insurance may not step in the way you hoped for when re-booking flights, as it will most likely not make much of a difference in the process.
• If you are using travel insurance just to keep your options open, you are making a mistake. It can ultimately result in a large waste of money on top of the trip you are already investing in.

Do Your Research

It is always going to be in your best interest to shop around and compare plans when dealing with insurance of any kind. It is also important to decide how much you truly travel, where you are headed to, and the transportation needed. You do not want to be underprepared for a trip but still want to save money in any way you can. So, ask yourself the tough questions especially this one: Do you need travel insurance for your next trip? For more information on medical travel insurance and if it is worth purchasing for your trip, visit Buying and Using Travel Insurance: Do You Need It?

Sources:

1. Should You Buy Travel Insurance? Insurance Information Institute.
2. 4  Times You Can Skip Travel Insurance and 3 Times You Should Buy It, CNBC.