Do I need travel insurance?  One of the most frequently asked questions when I talk with friends, family and clients about travel. In this post I am going to be talking about travel insurance. More specifically, what travel insurance is, how travel insurance works and if and why you should be investing in travel insurance on every trip that you go on. A lot of people ask me about travel insurance, wondering why they should even bother getting it for their trips. In this post, we’ll be covering all of that and more. 

Do I need travel insurance?

Great question. Here’s the thing… Do you really need it? 

This question has come up a lot recently, and for good reason. With the outbreak of a global pandemic people have begun to think a lot more about what happens if they get sick abroad. The thing about travel insurance though is that it usually covers so much more than just getting sick abroad. Travel insurance covers trip cancellation, baggage loss, emergency evacuation and more. But don’t worry, we’ll get into all of that. 

If you read a similar post like this from a travel insurance company… well they’re trying to sell you travel insurance. The purpose of their post is going to be very persuasive towards travel insurance. In this post I want to be very direct. I’ll talk about the pros of travel insurance but I’ll also talk about the cons. I’ll also be sharing stories of when travel insurance worked vs times when it should have worked for people and didn’t. 

We tend to have a general distrust of insurance and for good reason. I’m sure you all know someone who knows someone who was screwed over by their insurance company at one time or another. Which brings us back to the main purpose of this post. Do you need travel insurance?

I want to start by covering the components of travel insurance because they are different from other types of insurance that you have. In fact, travel insurance is very different from health insurance, car insurance or renters insurance. Travel insurance tends to be a mix of all of those things, specifically for travelers. 

The components of travel insurance

Medical Emergencies and Evacuations

Medical emergencies are probably the first thing you think of when you determine if you need travel insurance. How many trips have you been on that didn’t end in a medical emergency or evacuation? Chances are all of your trips have gone smoothly and not required you to be evacuated. However, it only takes one time to be the total game changer. It’s important to keep in mind that most of these things are out of your control. You can get evacuated due to a natural disaster that is completely out of your control.

The average evacuation can cost up to $100,000, which I am sure you don’t have lying around. This is an important factor to keep in mind when you are determining whether or not you should get travel insurance. 

Trip Cancellation/Trip Delay

Now what about a trip getting cancelled or delayed? Imagine you’ve already paid for your entire trip and then bam… it’s cancelled. All that money is gone, trip over. Trust me… it sucks. This is one you have to be very careful about with travel insurance. Always, always read the fine print. 

Things that most insurances cover are cancellations due to illness, death of a family member or an accident. Keep in mind that it usually doesn’t include weather or global pandemic. Yup. This means that when trips started getting cancelled last year due to COVID, people were unable to claim those trip costs on their travel insurance. This of course led to the question, why are we investing in travel insurance?!

Travel insurance will often clearly state that coverage includes unforeseen events. Let’s dive into this a bit more. 

If you buy travel insurance now, thinking it’ll cover you if you get COVID abroad, you’re likely wrong. COVID is now a foreseen event. With this in mind, most international destinations offer or require purchasing a specific insurance policy through their government and/or tourism board. This insurance covers you against outrageous medical and living expenses should you test positive for COVID and have to quarantine while away from home. We recently traveled to Aruba and experienced this process of Aruba Travel Insurance.  I outline all of the details in this post here. Similarly, if you book a trip and then a big storm hits, so you get travel insurance to cover delays, you once again, won’t be covered. Because the storm is now a foreseen event. How to avoid this? Book travel insurance the day you book your trip. 

Just make sure that you’re reading the fine print so that you know exactly what’s covered if your trip gets cancelled and of course, why your trip has been cancelled in the first place. 

Pro Travel Insurance Tip: If you know that your cancellation should be covered by the insurance, then be persistent. Don’t take no for an answer. Instead point out to them exactly why they should be giving you money. 

Loss or delay of baggage and personal belongings

This actually is one of the number one reasons people lean towards getting travel insurance. But here’s the thing… travel insurance is so finicky about why your items were lost. If you have a computer or laptop stolen from a shared room, they will likely deny your claim. However, if your baggage is lost or delayed, oftentimes you can get a lot of money back. You can also get assistance for buying new things while you wait for your baggage to be found. 

I’ve heard stories of this one going both ways for people. Either it’s really good and they get help or their claim is denied because the insurance says they were negligent with their belongings.

For example, I have a friend who lost her luggage flying into Bali. She landed and had nothing but her carry on. She claimed her insurance and she got money back for all of her lost items, she also got help with getting new things in Bali. 

I have another friend who had all of their belongings stolen, she wasn’t able to claim a single thing on insurance and ended up losing a lot of money replacing things (including her passport, laptop and camera). The theft happened while she was checking into an Airbnb so her insurance claimed she was being negligent with her belongings. 

Here’s my advice. If you’re traveling with expensive equipment, take out additional insurance on those items. That way if they’re stolen or damaged, you know you’ll get money back. You invested in those items, now make sure you’ve invested in keeping them safe. 

Personal Liability

Once again, here’s another one that is very dependent on the type of insurance and the plan you get. Personal liability covers the expenses you might owe in damages, injury and legal fees of an accident that you cause. When you’re signing up for insurance, make sure that you are reading the coverage plan or fine print on personal liability. 

Coming home early

Coming home early can mean a variety of things for travel insurance. If you’re coming home early due to illness, accident or death of a family member, you can get a lot of assistance from travel insurance. You can also get a refund for your travel insurance plan. For example, if you pay for travel insurance for 3 months and come home after one month, you’ll likely be able to get a refund. 

The most important thing to keep in mind is that all travel insurance plans and companies are very different. It can be confusing to know what to choose, so always, always read the fine print. Read through the details to make sure you’re getting the travel insurance plan that you need. That you’re not paying money for something that isn’t going to help you. 

The devil is in the details. 

Takeaways?

Is this post as confusing as travel insurance itself? Probably. Because travel insurance is confusing. My advice, though, is to always get travel insurance. It might not cover you for everything, but having coverage is better than not every time. If an emergency arises, your fun holiday could result in a lifetime of debt. Get travel insurance for that reason alone. 

We always purchase travel insurance and have consistently had the best experience in purchasing with World Nomads travel insurance.

I’ve done a ton of research and feel that they offer the best coverage for an affordable price. Travel insurance from World Nomads is available to people from over 130 countries. It’s designed for adventurous travelers with cover for overseas medical, evacuation, baggage and a range of adventure sports and activities. I’ve included a very helpful quote widget at the bottom of this post. I find this to be so helpful when planning a trip and building the expense of travel insurance into my budget. 

Taking a trip is a gamble. If it gets cancelled, you might be out. That’s just reality. But if an emergency happens, you’re going to be kicking yourself for not having a couple hundred dollars worth of insurance. Think of insurance in that way. Think of it as ‘in case of emergency’ instead of hoping to get every penny back on a trip that gets cancelled or delayed. 

Also, if you are ever planning on an adventurous holiday with scuba diving, river rafting, hiking excursions, bungee jumping, skydiving or anything else, get insurance. Just do it. I promise you won’t regret having travel insurance if an emergency happens. 

Did this post help answer your questions about travel insurance?

I really hope so, if you have any additional questions about travel insurance, or if you want to share a story of when travel insurance did work for you, or even when it didn’t, hop into the comments below. I absolutely love having the chance to connect with you guys and talk more about these topics. So let’s chat about travel insurance down below.