Have you ever considered getting travel insurance when booking your vacation plans? You’ve likely heard the term before, but you may not understand what it means and how it can help smooth out any problems during your travels.
Travel insurance is effective for many unexpected events, like needing to cancel a trip or expensive medical costs. It also tends to be fairly inexpensive and is well worth the cost should anything go wrong.
Imagine getting in a car accident on vacation and incurring costly medical bills. Wouldn’t you want insurance that covers you and helps pay for this?
Accidents involving cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles are a top-ten cause of unintentional non-fatal injuries. The last thing you want from a vacation is to get in an accident that causes you injury and not have insurance to help!
We’ll explain travel insurance and what it’s good for below so you can make an informed decision about whether you need it!
What Is Travel Insurance?
As the name suggests, travel insurance is coverage for the expenses of traveling.
It is often offered by companies that sell plane tickets and can be as specific or broad as you would like.
There are coverage options that relate to needing to cancel a trip, medical costs, and baggage loss. Alternatively, you can purchase blanket coverage that will give you insurance for all of these expenses.
Many times, travel insurance is not a necessity. Instead, it serves as a nice backup plan should anything go wrong.
If you get injured after booking your flight and making hotel reservations, then you can use travel insurance to get compensated for most of the expenses you’ve already paid for.
This is important because plane tickets are usually non-refundable, which could put you out for thousands of dollars if you don’t have insurance.
Reimbursement for Cancellations and Interruptions
Speaking of insurance for canceling, this is arguably the greatest benefit of travel insurance.
If there is any reason for needing to cancel your trip or cut it short, you can be compensated under your coverage plan.
Some aspects of a trip are refundable. If you cancel early enough, you won’t need to pay for hotel reservations and tours that need to be booked in advance.
However, this is not a luxury afforded to costs like plane tickets or canceling any reservations without notice. This is where travel insurance is incredibly handy; nonrefundable costs.
That said, this coverage isn’t as important if you don’t end up canceling or shortening a trip. It’s still a good idea to have because it means you can leave early without worry in case there’s an emergency back at home.
Coverage for Medical Costs
Another great benefit is to help with unexpected medical costs.
Hopefully, you have a pleasant vacation without any hassles, which means not getting injured. This is the perfect scenario, but life doesn’t always work out how we want it to.
If you do end up getting yourself injured in an accident or if you pick up a local illness, then going to the hospital might be a necessity for you.
Even if you have health insurance back home, it often won’t cover you on vacation. This means you’ll need to foot the bill yourself unless you have travel insurance.
There are exceptions to this coverage, like if you have a pre-existing condition that results in costs.
You never want to plan for a disaster to happen, but it’s way better to be prepared if one does occur rather than not having the means to pay for it.
Replacement Costs for Lost Baggage
One final advantage of travel insurance is receiving replacement values for any damaged or lost baggage.
For some reason, airlines have a bad habit of losing your luggage. This doesn’t happen to everyone, but you’ve likely had your luggage lost or delayed at some point during your travels.
This is incredibly frustrating because your bags have a lot of personal effects and sometimes expensive possessions inside.
With travel insurance, you can get paid for the cost of your bags and what’s inside. You might be traveling empty-handed, but at least you’ll get paid to buy some new belongings.
Don’t Wait To Get Travel Insurance
If you do decide that travel insurance is worth it for you, you must purchase it promptly.
All insurance companies are different, but the general rule is that it must be purchased within two-three weeks of booking your flight and reservations.
This doesn’t mean that you’re out of luck if you go beyond this window, but you’ll need to pay a premium to get coverage in time.
Travel insurance isn’t right for everyone, but it may be worth it if you have a costly vacation with factors that could render you unable to go. The cost may be frustrating, but it’s certainly worth being refunded for your trip if you can’t go.
Closing Thoughts
There are many great reasons to purchase travel insurance for your vacation.
If you need to cancel or cut your trip short, there’s no problem and you can get an easy refund of most of your initial payment.
Unexpected medical costs can also be covered and prevent you from having a giant bill without an easy way to pay it.
You can also receive compensation for lost or damaged baggage, which is an extremely common problem that occurs with flying.
If you do decide that travel insurance would be beneficial for you, make sure to buy it within three weeks of booking your plane tickets!
Weight the cost of travel insurance against the likelihood of you getting into an accident or not being able to make your trip. For just a few hundred extra dollars, the peace of mind you’ll earn is often worth the cost.
