4 Travel Insurance Tips – Why You Might Need them for Certain Trips

Presented by Charles L Harmon

You almost certainly need travel insurance if you’re going to take these kind of risks.

In our daily lives insurance is likely to be a big expense. Most of the time it seems to be a big waste of money. But things are different when you go away on vacation, especially out of the country. That’s when it is advisable to have travel insurance.

Travel insurance can be a big help when traveling on your vacation. The question, though, is when do you really need to purchase travel insurance and why?

Here are some situations where you might want to have travel insurance:

• You may not have a choice when working through a travel agent. They may require it. They are usually excellent judges of when you really need travel insurance.
• It is unwise not to have travel insurance when traveling to some countries or areas.
• It just might be foolish not to spend a few hundred dollars on Travel insurance if it is a small part of the overall cost of the vacation.

These tips above don’t apply in such cases.

Four other Times to Consider Purchasing Travel Insurance

Here are four other times to consider purchasing travel insurance:

1. Traveling with expensive equipment – If you own a laptop and plan to take it with you on your long distance trip, you should consider getting it insured. All too often, laptop owners have their laptops stolen while they’re away from their car or while you’re away from the hotel room.

Laptops are expensive to replace – like other expensive items, such as jewelry. Travel insurance will help you recover a portion of the loss of that item, enabling you to replace it easily.

It also helps covers the costs when an unfortunate accident occurs. It’s better to pay a little money for the insurance than to get hit up with a major loss because something happened while you were on your trip.

2. Planning an expensive trip – If you’re going on an expensive cruise, traveling abroad, or flying first class, you should consider travel insurance. It will cover you in case something unforeseen happens.

For example I went on an African safari, thousands of miles from my California home. The safari cost in the neighborhood of $10,000. I purchased travel insurance. It would have been foolish not to pay about $500 for travel insurance for that trip. It turned out on one of those safaris I went on; our luggage was lost somewhere in Africa. When we arrived in Amsterdam for our final flight home there was no luggage. Fortunately we had travel insurance – but we did finally get our luggage, in tact. But that was several days later so we didn’t have to file a claim. However, the situation could have been much different had we never received our baggage. In that case travel insurance would have saved the day.

3. Traveling abroad – Whenever you travel outside of the country, you should always have travel insurance in place. It’s too easy to lose your luggage in those long trips that often require switching of planes.

4. Health reasons if you are older When you’re traveling abroad, your health insurance may not cover any medical costs that occur outside of your country.

Travel insurance will cover you for any lost items and emergency medical costs that you incur while you’re outside of your own country. The insurance can cover a good portion of what you lost or your medical bills, so take advantage of it. It’s better to be safe than sorry in these situations.

Unlikely but Possible Situations could Occur

• If you have an unexpected death in the family right before you’re about to leave for your trip, the insurance will keep you from losing your money.
• If the airline you’ve booked a flight with all of a sudden goes bankrupt right before your trip, the insurance will cover the loss there. Nowadays this is all too likely to happen. Even though the recession in the U.S. is over there are still worldwide economic problems.
• Don’t assume the airline will honor your flight booking and give you a refund in the event they file bankruptcy. It’s not likely to happen, since they are filing bankruptcy for a reason.

Travel insurance can be a huge help to you anytime you travel a long distance, abroad or with expensive items. Keep your traveling investment safe by purchasing some kind of travel insurance and avoid those unforeseen things that happen which end up costing more money in the end.

Travel insurance covers many different things, so do your research and what each company offers. Determine what you really need and protect yourself the next time you plan to travel. If you use a travel agent be sure to have them enumerate just what the insurance will cover and why you need it if it seems questionable.

Although these are just a few travel insurance tips they could be a life saver if ever needed.