Do I need travel insurance?

**disneysteve** · 04-24-2011, 04:48 PM

Other than the drive, what do your trips consist of? Typically, hotel rooms can be cancelled up until 6pm the day of arrival without penalty. If you miss that deadline, the penalty is usually one night's charge. So if you cancelled a week long stay, the most you'd get stuck paying is the first night (unless you booked some special non-refundable rate which you got online, for example).

Are there other costly parts to your trip? Will you be joining some tour group at your destination, taking a cruise or doing some other prepaid or pre-reserved activities that you wouldn't be able to cancel and get refunded? If so, it can be worth looking into travel insurance. If not, it probably doesn't make sense for you.

We purchase travel insurance when we cruise because there are numerous things that can go wrong and result in a costly penalty. We do not get insurance when we are doing driving vacations because there is really very little financial risk to those trips. If something happens and we can't go or have to cut the trip short for some reason, there really isn't much that we'd lose out on financially so there isn't much of anything to insure.

**kork13** · 04-24-2011, 05:05 PM

For driving trips, there's no reason to have travel insurance. Anything that 'goes wrong' would generally be covered by your auto insurance, or can be taken care of with zero impact with a simple phone call. You mentioned you have USAA auto insurance... As long as you have their roadside assistance coverage (I think it's like $5/mo), that should be the extent of what you would want/need. Considering the frequency and distance of your trips, the RA coverage would be absolutely worth it...beyond that, no way.

**Pansori** · 04-24-2011, 05:19 PM

Originally posted by kork13 View Post

As long as you have their roadside assistance coverage (I think it's like $5/mo), that should be the extent of what you would want/need. Considering the frequency and distance of your trips, the RA coverage would be absolutely worth it...beyond that, no way.

Thank you for the replies, this was my major concern. All the trips are personal, not really doing any tourist things. I was most concerned about my car breaking down, and I do have roadside assistance. I will be staying with friends and family, so no hotels.

**disneysteve** · 04-24-2011, 05:36 PM

You definitely don't need travel insurance. There is nothing for you to insure.

**Pansori** · 04-24-2011, 05:51 PM

Originally posted by disneysteve View Post

You definitely don't need travel insurance. There is nothing for you to insure.

Thanks, I really have no idea what travelers insurance covers.

Didn't even realize there was such a thing until recently.

**Mjenn** · 04-24-2011, 11:05 PM

You should check some of your other agreements - we have travel insurance from Visa when we buy our airplane tickets with them - even though we use our check card to buy the tickets, we are still covered. Also we have some coverage via our renter's insurance - but when our flight got cancelled once we found that the Visa coverage was better.

Also, as far as rental cars go, I know we had guests who rented a car in Europe and paid with Amex. They got into a fender bender, of which most was paid by the insurance from the rental agency and Amex covered the deductible.

Often times, unless you travel with a lot of expensive goods, travel insurance isn't really worth it.

I know it isn't really important for car trips, but good to know for other things as well. But maybe it's not the same in the US?

**Seeker** · 04-24-2011, 11:32 PM

Originally posted by Mjenn View Post

You should check some of your other agreements - we have travel insurance from Visa when we buy our airplane tickets with them - even though we use our check card to buy the tickets, we are still covered. Also we have some coverage via our renter's insurance - but when our flight got cancelled once we found that the Visa coverage was better.

Also, as far as rental cars go, I know we had guests who rented a car in Europe and paid with Amex. They got into a fender bender, of which most was paid by the insurance from the rental agency and Amex covered the deductible.

Often times, unless you travel with a lot of expensive goods, travel insurance isn't really worth it.

I know it isn't really important for car trips, but good to know for other things as well. But maybe it's not the same in the US?

Mjenn,
Generally I agree with DS. It's not really a "country" thing.... it's more of a big expense travel arrangement. You can insure that you will not lose 100% of the pre-paid expenses if something happens to interrupt that trip.

What happens if you have to cancel your trip and you've made extensive reservations that amount to 3k? (a cruise for instance). Cruises have all sorts of connectivity issues especially if you're flying across the US to take that cruise. What happens if a flight gets delayed? What happens if you get stuck at a port?

Driving... no, you wouldn't need traveler's insurance. But a cruise or a flight to Europe, or anything major like that, you might want to look into it.

**Mjenn** · 04-25-2011, 02:26 AM

Seeker -

Sorry if I was unclear, but I meant that we discovered we had travel insurance for trips we purchased with our Visa checking card - it is included in our visa card poilicy - we read the policy and it covered our regular trips to the US quite well. When we needed to rebook and were delayed due to cancellation we had no problem rebooking and getting a large sum of money towards our 'expenses.' Our renter's insurance also includes travel insurance, but not as good as the visa card. We can opt to add a larger policy to our renter's insurance to expand on travel insurance and it would cover road trips as well, but we haven't done this since our coverage is good.

I just mean that in reading the fine print, extra travel insurance for our flights has always seemed unnecessary because of the other insurance we already have.

But certainly if you read up and find this isn't adequate for you, or if you have something like a cruise - (never done it, so don't know how that works with our policies) then travel insurance is grand. And something I would never travel without.

ETA: I only bring it up here because I travel a lot and used to always invest in rather expensive travel insurance - until someone told me I should read through my Visa and insurance policies - and after speaking with both companies I realized that I had all the coverage I was paying extra for already - been traveling like this for the last 5 years now, and have had all sorts of incidents covered. (Delays, lost luggage, emergency dental visits)
(Our renter's insurance also covers health insurance on all trips to the US - something which I wouldn't travel without)

**Joan.of.the.Arch** · 04-25-2011, 07:55 AM

Pansori, I thank you for this post because it gives me something to think about for my own future travel by car.

I think I remember seeing years ago that AAA (Know for roadside service) also offered some sort of medical coverage while traveling. At my age and state of health, and with my regular health insurance covering expenses at a lowered percentage when I seek care from an "out of plan" doctor or hospital, maybe I should see what is available.

Well, if I get deathly sick while traveling, please let it be while I am in the beautiful Rocky Mountains, where I would already be close to heaven.

**disneysteve** · 04-25-2011, 08:26 AM

If you are taking a car trip without any preset expense (like a cruise or organized tour package), you really couldn't get trip insurance anyway. The cost of a trip insurance policy is based on the dollar amount of the trip you are insuring.

**skydivingchic** · 04-25-2011, 11:45 AM

We only get travel insurance for our big international trips. As DS pointed out, you should consider it for trips where you are pre-paying stuff like tours. When we've done international trips, everything has been paid before we leave and most of it is non-refundable, so we would be out thousands of dollars if anything happened. Beside what has already been mentioned, the policies we've gotten would cover if one of us got sick shortly before the trip and couldn't travel, if a relative passed away, etc.

The other big thing you would want travel insurance for is emergency evacuation and medical care. Our international trips are usually to hard to get to, not well developed areas. If one of us got hurt while on the trip, it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to get evacuated and to a hospital. Travel insurance covers that. On our Antarctica trip that actually happened to one of the participants - she broke her leg and it was too complex a break for the ship's doctor and nurse to be able to handle on board. The ship had to be diverted and arrangements made for a plane to take her from one of the research stations back to South America.

**snafu** · 04-25-2011, 02:46 PM

Before signing up for travel insurance offered by your travel agent, take the time to read and understand what is covered and what is not covered. You don't want to discover this in an emergency situation. Often insurance is cheaper and better from your existing insurance provider. For example, an inexpensive rider on existing auto insurance will cover any rental car since that daily rate is considerably more expensive.

**Deepak Bisht** · 07-20-2011, 08:10 PM

Travel Insurance is really not a waste of money and frequent traveler should use it. It is very beneficial and provides a vast opportunity in case of emergency.

**Frugal** · 07-21-2011, 02:55 PM

My mom, who is older, got travel insurance for a trip for the airline tickets. I personally only took it out when I went to Europe.

Do I need travel insurance?