Is Travel Insurance Worth It? Know here
April 20, 2025
Things to know before you buy travel insurance. I've been getting questions about travel insurance, quite a bit that recently. People often ask me, "Piyush, should I buy travel insurance? Should I insure my next trip? Is it right for me? Do you buy travel insurance?" So those are some of the things I'm gonna answer in this article.
The first thing to know is travel insurance doesn't make sense for everybody. To determine whether it makes sense for you, you have to decide how willing you are to take financial risks related to travel. Travel insurance exists to minimize the financial risk when you travel and so you have to look at the trip that you're taking, how much money did it cost? If you can't go or something happens, how much money are you out? Are you just out a few hundred bucks in air fare or is it a $15,000 once in a lifetime trip?
Those are things you have to look at to decide whether you wanna buy travel insurance or not. And you also have to ask yourself, how much is peace of mind worth to you? If you're someone who worries a lot, peace of mind might actually be worth quite a bit. The second thing to know is that there are many different types of travel insurance. It is not a one-size-fits-all thing. And every travel insurance plan covers different areas and different conditions.
This one kicks in if you have to interrupt and stop your trip halfway through, a third of the way through, because something happened and you have to go home. In that case, the insurance would refund you the rest of the price of your vacation that you didn't get to enjoy. Trip delay coverage will reimburse your expenses due to delays in travel.
One area that very important to you is Medical coverage. It is part of a travel insurance policy will reimburse medical expenses incurred at you are travel location. You might also want to look at emergency evacuation or transport coverage so that if you have to go to a hospital, if you're in a third world country, if you have medical transport or emergency evacuation due to a medical situation, then they will pay for transporting you to a better country that has better health facilities.
Death or dismemberment coverage, this one's kind of a depressing one, but if the covered person dies, or is dismembered, loses limbs, then their next of kin or in the case that they were dismembered would receive the money associated with that part of the policy. Baggage coverage will provide for reimbursement of expenses due to loss, damage delayed, or stolen baggage.
Rental car coverage will cover your rental car on a trip. Change coverage will cover you of you have to make change fees to your airlines reservations, cruise ships, whatever the change these come from. Some less common types of coverage areas but you might be interested in them depending upon where you're going.
The first one is political evacuation coverage. If there's something like an uprising in the country, this we'll provide for your transport out of that country in that situation. If you see a policy labeled as a comprehensive policy, that's typically one that covered almost all of the things that we talked about above.
Another type of interesting insurance policy are annual policies. If you travel a lot, then you actually might want to look and getting an annual policy, which would cover you on all the trips you take in a year. This would make sense if you travel quite a bit. The third thing you need to know is about price.
Travel insurance generally costs 5% to 12% of the total value insured for the trip. The biggest factor is the age of the people insured, and if your age is over 50 years old, then it generally goes up considerably from there. Children under the age of 17 might be free or discounted provided that there are some adults on the policy already.
The first thing to know is travel insurance doesn't make sense for everybody. To determine whether it makes sense for you, you have to decide how willing you are to take financial risks related to travel. Travel insurance exists to minimize the financial risk when you travel and so you have to look at the trip that you're taking, how much money did it cost? If you can't go or something happens, how much money are you out? Are you just out a few hundred bucks in air fare or is it a $15,000 once in a lifetime trip?
Those are things you have to look at to decide whether you wanna buy travel insurance or not. And you also have to ask yourself, how much is peace of mind worth to you? If you're someone who worries a lot, peace of mind might actually be worth quite a bit. The second thing to know is that there are many different types of travel insurance. It is not a one-size-fits-all thing. And every travel insurance plan covers different areas and different conditions.
Is Travel Insurance Worth It? Know here
So now, I wanna share with you some of the coverage areas that you might be interested in and looking for in a policy. The most common coverage area for travel insurance is trip cancellation coverage. If you have a policy that has trip cancellation coverage, then your insurance will refund you the price of your trip provided that the reason you're canceling is one of the covered reasons.This one kicks in if you have to interrupt and stop your trip halfway through, a third of the way through, because something happened and you have to go home. In that case, the insurance would refund you the rest of the price of your vacation that you didn't get to enjoy. Trip delay coverage will reimburse your expenses due to delays in travel.
One area that very important to you is Medical coverage. It is part of a travel insurance policy will reimburse medical expenses incurred at you are travel location. You might also want to look at emergency evacuation or transport coverage so that if you have to go to a hospital, if you're in a third world country, if you have medical transport or emergency evacuation due to a medical situation, then they will pay for transporting you to a better country that has better health facilities.
Death or dismemberment coverage, this one's kind of a depressing one, but if the covered person dies, or is dismembered, loses limbs, then their next of kin or in the case that they were dismembered would receive the money associated with that part of the policy. Baggage coverage will provide for reimbursement of expenses due to loss, damage delayed, or stolen baggage.
Rental car coverage will cover your rental car on a trip. Change coverage will cover you of you have to make change fees to your airlines reservations, cruise ships, whatever the change these come from. Some less common types of coverage areas but you might be interested in them depending upon where you're going.
The first one is political evacuation coverage. If there's something like an uprising in the country, this we'll provide for your transport out of that country in that situation. If you see a policy labeled as a comprehensive policy, that's typically one that covered almost all of the things that we talked about above.
Travel Insurance Policy:
If you're looking at a policy that says it's reimbursement only, then the way that policy works is you pay first and then you get reimbursed. Some might pay before you first in the case of medical transport, the insurance company might pay for that direct. So you have to see, do you have enough money in the bank to pay for those potential expenses and then fight to get your money back later from the insurance company?Another type of interesting insurance policy are annual policies. If you travel a lot, then you actually might want to look and getting an annual policy, which would cover you on all the trips you take in a year. This would make sense if you travel quite a bit. The third thing you need to know is about price.
Travel insurance generally costs 5% to 12% of the total value insured for the trip. The biggest factor is the age of the people insured, and if your age is over 50 years old, then it generally goes up considerably from there. Children under the age of 17 might be free or discounted provided that there are some adults on the policy already.