Do you need Travel insurance?

wonderfulgetaways.blogspot.com presents the reasons you need travel insurance.



While a majority of those who don’t buy travel insurance are familiar with flight and trip cancellation insurance,many people are unaware of travel health insurance, baggage coverage and medical evacuation insurance. Even among travel insurance buyers, only 50 percent were aware of medical evacuation insurance.

There’s yet another kind of insurance that's available to air travelers that the airlines aren't exactly rushing to tell you about. In fact, they actually wish you didn't know about it. It's called excess valuation.

Reasons to buy travel insurance
1. Your flight has been cancelled.
2. Your bags are lost and your medication is in it. You need to have an emergency prescription filled.
3. Your passport and wallet are stolen, and you need emergency cash and a replacement passport.
4. You're involved in an accident and adequate medical treatment is not available. You need medical evacuation.
5. You need to cancel your trip due to illness.
6. Your cruise line, airline or tour operator goes bankrupt. You need your non-refundable expenses covered and to get to your destination.
7. You have a medical emergency in a foreign country.
8. A terrorist incident occurs in the city where you’re planning to visit and you want to cancel your trip.
9. A hurricane forces you to evacuate your resort, hotel or cruise.

Here are the basics types of insurance:

Flight insurance
Many of us grew up noticing those insurance kiosks at airports. They offer to pay out big bucks if you bought the insurance, the plane crashed and you were on it. Advice: This is not necessary. In fact, if you annualized the premium, it's the most expensive kind of travel insurance you can buy, and probably the least necessary. My advice: NO.


Trip Cancellation and Interruption insurance
This is a biggie. The key here is price point. If you're flying on a $59 Southwest Airlines ticket from Burbank to Las Vegas, you have an incredibly small investment to protect. You shouldn't buy trip cancellation and interruption insurance. A $15,000 once-in-a-lifetime cruise vacation? My advice: YES. Buy this insurance. If you get sick, or miss your trip, or the travel provider (airline, cruise line, bus transfer company) goes out of business, you're not left high and dry. You're covered. My advice: YES, with one additional caution. Do NOT buy this insurance from the individual travel provider, meaning don't buy your cruise trip insurance from the cruise ship company. Why? If that company goes out of business, chances are, so does their insurance.

Health Care insurance
This is perhaps the most confusing area. Most people think they are covered if they already have existing health care insurance. Within the United States, that’s true. Outside the U.S., however, is a big IF. And in some cases, your insurance won't even cover you if you're traveling on a foreign-flagged vessel. This is a huge red flag, since most cruise ships, even those cruising U.S. waters, are not flagged in the U.S.