Who do you trust for travel insurance?
I’ve never had travel insurance, and luckily I’ve never needed it. However, we see many travel writers strongly recommending travel insurance. Perhaps if we knew which insurance company to trust…
Here’s a story about a couple who couldn’t travel because their passports arrived to slowly. Their travel insurance didn’t cover anything - quite a shock to the couple who spent money on insurance, couldn’t travel, and couldn’t collect from insurance.
I can probably afford to lose some money on a flight or something, but what really scares me is emergency medical evacuation because that can cost a fortune.
We do have a little British advice - I wish I knew of an American company that offered an annual travel insurance policy that covered me every time I travel.
While everyone in England recommends it, in America we don’t see that so much. Speaking of England, I read that “47 per cent of UK holidaymakers still did not bother to take out any travel cover before their trip” which leaves 53% of the people buying travel insurance. I wish I had a statistic for America, but I’m willing to bet it’s much much lower than 53%.
According to this article Consumer Reports isn’t a big fan of travel insurance.
That same article reinforces what I said before about medical evacuation though:
Dr. Leon Reinstein of Baltimore says he has been buying travel insurance for overseas trips ever since one of his patients needed to be evacuated 10 years ago from the Bahamas after breaking her hip. That 90-mile ambulance evacuation to Miami cost $25,000.
They did also mention one family that had a good experience with Travel Guard insurance when a hurricane hit their vacation spot.So basically they say buy travel insurance when:
1. You’re spending a lot of money on your trip and losing sleep about something happening
2. You’re traveling when there’s a risk of bad weather
3. If you’re afraid of spending tens of thousands of dollars on medical evacuation
I guess #3 would be especially important to people who are going rafting or something similar - something where there’s a better than average chance of getting injured. Also with #3, you don’t necessarily need travel insurance to get medical evacuation coverage.
Source: travel-plan-idea.com