Trip Insurance/Protection or No Trip Insurance/Protection. What is Best?

Trip Insurance/Protection or No Trip Insurance/Protection. What is Best?

This is a good question to ask! Simple answer, It is up to you and there is no clear answer. More com plex answer, It is like all insurance, you need to look at the risks and see if it is worth the money to you. Do you think you might cancel your trip or have an emergency during the trip.

 

Why have Travel Insurance/Protection? Things can happen even before you leave. Someone gets sick or injured just before vacation. Flight delays/cancelations make it so you miss connections and don’t make it to your destination at all or you miss your cruise ship. You get sick, injured, or someone you are responsible for caring for is sick or injured. Any of these and more can cause you to miss a trip.  You can also have a problem on the vacation. Things like, Airlines losing luggage, illness, and injury happen while on vacation.

 

What to consider when thinking about Travel Insurance/Protection:

Do you have any health worries? Are you older, have known health issues?

Are you traveling during a season where weather may be a concern and cause delays or other issues? An example of this is sailing the Caribbean during Hurricane Season.

Do you have an obligation, are you caring for an elderly family member, ill child, spouse or other family member at home that may result in you needing to cancel your trip?

Accidents happen, even on vacation. Will your medical bills and possible emergency transportation home be covered by your regular insurance, or could you afford it out of pocket ?

 

There are two choices when purchasing Travel Insurance/Protection:

You can purchase Travel Protection from the destination. Make sure to read all the cancelation policy information before doing this. Often major destinations have their own Travel Protection that will refund your Reservation Costs and more. Places like Disney Parks, Cruise Lines and other locations have Travel Protections they either they fund or they have an Insurer.

Plus side. of Travel Protection from the destination is, many times you can add it as you make final payment and no health questions being asked. The upside of this is you don’t lose your premium for the protection because you paid for it already if you have to cancel before the final cancelation/payment date. Remember, once the premium is paid you lose it if you cancel for any reason, even there would be penalties.

Downside, to this is if you choose a small cruise line or destination and they fund the Protection and they don’t have the money to refund you, you are out. Sad to say people have lost tens of thousands of dollars because of this.

 

You can buy Travel Insurance from an established Insurance Agency. Travel Guard is one of many. They cover the same things the Travel Protection does.

Plus side, you know you are covered even if the Destination goes under like some have. You can choose to up the limits and pay more if desired.

Downside is in most cases you only have 15 days after booking your vacation to purchase the Travel Insurance without qualifying questions needing to be answered. After 15 days you may need to answer questions and get a form filled out by your doctor to get the insurance with a higher premium. You cannot wait until final payment date to make the decision about insurance and you will lose the premium if you purchase it then cancel.