Travel Insurance

With a travel insurance plan that includes emergency medical coverage, you are expanding your health insurance in most cases. Most plans will work as secondary insurance, filling the holes of your primary health insurance plan. 

 This might be the most common cause of ruined vacations. If you or a travel companion were to get sick right before your planned trip and you hade to cancel, you could lose the total cost of the trip, or if a medical emergency crops up during your trip and you need to come home early, in many cases there might be no reimbursement available. That’s where travel insurance could come in handy. 

 If you are checking a bag when you travel, you are at risk of the airline losing, redirecting or damaging your bag and its contents. Many regular travelers are also business travelers, and losing your luggage could mean losing business attire for a big meeting. Without a travel insurance plan, you would have to endure the cost of purchasing a new suit or appropriate outfit and miss out on benefits that could help reimburse that cost. 

 If you need to be flown to a hospital or evacuated from a danger zone, helicopter transport could cost you thousands of dollars. Travel insurance may cover these types of costs. 

 When a hurricane or winter storm closes the airport for days, keeping you from reaching the resort you’re heading to, you could lose the cost of airfare, side trips and even what you’ve paid for the resort. Buying your travel insurance policy when you book your trip may help you get reimbursed for these costs. 

 If you have to cancel your trip due to a covered reason, a comprehensive travel insurance plan may help reimburse you for lost trip costs. Each plan will have a list of covered reasons for both cancellation and interruption. If those don’t seem to cover your needs, you should consider a plan that allows you to upgrade to Cancel for Any Reason coverage. (Keep in mind, that coverage has specific eligibility requirements.) If you’re planning a trip, now is the time to start thinking seriously about buying travel insurance.