6 Reasons Why Travel Insurance is Necessary
You’ve just booked your holiday vacation. You’re excited and can’t wait to go. But there’s one more thing to do before you can tick off “√ booked travel plans”. It’s to purchase travel insurance. The sooner you buy your travel insurance the sooner your entire trip is covered.
You may be thinking, but why do I need travel insurance? Let’s have a look at six reasons why travel insurance is necessary.
In this Article You Will Learn Why to Get Travel Insurance:
- Medical emergency before travelling
- Your luggage goes missing
- Bad weather
- Lost or stolen items
- You get sick
- You need to be repatriated (evacuated)
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Why You May Need Travel Insurance
1. You Get Too Sick to Travel
Image by ElasticComputeFarm from Pixabay
You may be fit and healthy now, but your holiday vacation could be some time away. You never know what might happen.
We’ve recently just experienced this ourselves. With only four days before we were due to fly out on our family holiday, a medical emergency struck. My husband was suddenly sent to the hospital and within hours he was in surgery. On the plus side, we have travel insurance, we will receive a refund and be able to rebook at a suitable time.
In case you were wondering, my husband, is doing well. He was released from the hospital a few days later and is now going to follow-up appointments. As yet, he has not been given the all-clear to fly.
Top Trip Tip: As soon as you book your holiday vacation plans, purchase travel insurance so that you are covered from the time of booking. We use Cover-More*
2. The Weather is Worse than Bad
Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric
Another thing that can happen before you leave on your holiday vacation or affect you during your trip is – bad weather. Hurricanes, blizzards, fog, ice, and even volcanic eruptions. You can’t predict them. Bad weather can delay your travel plans, causing you to miss connections or even leave you stranded in a foreign location.
So if your travel plans are disrupted due to bad weather you may be covered by your travel insurance. How much you are covered will depend on your travel insurance policy.
Top Trip Tip: Read the travel insurance disclosure for your policy as some weather conditions are sometimes not included
3. Your Bags Go “Missing” During Transit
Photo by Skitterphoto
Ok, so you’ve safely got on the plane, cruise ship, or train without any medical emergencies or bad weather delaying you. But what happens if your luggage goes missing en route to or from your travel destination?
Really! you’re thinking, how often do bags go missing? Sadly more often than airlines would like you to think. I know, I used to work for Australia’s most well-known airline in the lost luggage department. Generally speaking just about every flight had at least one bag not turn up. On the plus side, it was very rare not to be able to reunite a passenger with their luggage within 24 hours. But the inconvenience is there for you, the passenger. You may need to purchase spare toiletries and a few basic clothes.
If you were wondering what usually causes your bag to go missing – it is human error. Bags accidentally get loaded onto the wrong flight or forgotten to be loaded. Or on the rare occasion that the thermal tag that the airline places on your bag gets caught on something and rips off. To be honest the airline wishes it didn’t happen as it costs the airline money to reunite you with your bag.
As a side note: be polite to the person to whom you are reporting the missing bag. They did not make the error, they are trying to fix it.
Top Trip Tip: As a bag does go missing on most flights, place an additional tag on your bag with your name and phone number. It would also be wise to pack a spare set of undergarments or must-have necessities for arrival in your hand luggage. Pop your items into one of these great hand luggage bags*
4. Theft or Loss of Item
Then again sometimes you’re at fault for your own missing item. You could have mistakenly left your mobile phone or reading glasses in the seat pocket of your flight. Or perhaps you’d left your iPad out charging in the hotel room and it was stolen.
Or, you could be just in the wrong place at the wrong time and become the victim of a bag snatch.
Top Trip Tip: You will need to get a copy of a police report or document from the airline/cruise line detailing the event to pass on to your travel insurance company
Help protect your money with these…
5. You Get Sick or Injured
Image by Hamilton Viana Viana from Pixabay
What happens if during that bag snatch you get injured, or you slip on a banana peel, or an adventure day trip goes badly and you need medical assistance?
If you are going to need something more than a band-aid and paracetamol you will need medical travel insurance. Hospital bills in foreign countries can be HUGE.
Top Trip Tip: Disclose any pre-existing medical conditions. Some will be covered and others may require an additional fee
Put together your own…
6. Medical Evacuation or Repatriation
Pexels Photo by Tim Gouw
If you’ve been severely injured you may need to be repatriated. This means that even though you have been treated in your vacation destination’s hospital it will be quite some time before you fully recover. To return home is more than sitting in your aeroplane seat, you need to lay on a stretcher. A stretcher takes up nine seats on a plane. How are you paying for that?
Other reasons for repatriation could be civil unrest or terrorist acts of violence and your sudden need to return home to safety due to these unforeseen events.
Top Trip Tip: Many tour companies require repatriation to be included in your travel insurance. In addition, you will need to check if it is considered safe to travel to your holiday destination. If there is an existing embargo then you may not be covered
Just recapping
Buy travel insurance preferably at the same time as booking and paying for your trip – if not as soon as possible – you never know what may happen:
- Medical emergency
- Bad weather
- Lost luggage
- Stolen items
Top Trip Tip: For further information on the safety of travel check with your government’s travel website. Here in Australia, we have Smartraveller which offers all sorts of travel advice including:
- Register your travel plans
- Visa requirements
- Safety and security including embargos
- General travel tips
A Final Note on Reasons for Travel Insurance
Generally speaking, it is rare to make a claim on travel insurance. You may be questioning whether it is really worth the cost.
So ponder this, as someone once said to me,
think of it like house insurance, you don’t expect your house to burn down, but what if it does?
The reason why travel insurance is necessary – is the same. You don’t expect these instances to occur on or before your trip, but what if it does?
In the long run, the small cost of travel insurance could save you a fortune!
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It’s one of those things you hope you never need. We used to never buy travel insurance – call it a misguided youth – but now always do. Ironically, we had a baggage claim the very first time we bought insurance. That sure made believers out of us! #TheWeeklyPostcard
It is just like any other insurance Rob, you take it out hoping you never have to use it.
I’ve never gotten travel insurance but your post is making me feel like I should have. My husband got sick as soon as we moved to Thailand and we ended spending a fortune. Insurance could have saved us some money.
Living abroad Victoria you may have more options available for insurance. Speak to your employer if they offer something for expats.
I can’t ever convince my husband that travel insurance is a good idea. He’d rather just pay or be out the money if something happens. Perhaps this will convince him.
I’ll cross my fingers for you Michele.
Couldn’t agree more, I always get travel insurance although I’ve only made one claim so far – for a flight delay. Everyone should be prepared to have to jump through a lot of hoops in order to make a successful claim, though. My friend’s father had a cardiac episode on holiday, and she said it was a nightmare having to deal with the hospital AND the insurance company. Coverage differs across policies too, I think. I lost my phone in Bogota through carelessness and it wasn’t covered under my policy – it had to be stolen from you despite you having taken all reasonable precautions. But hopefully when you really need it – like in a medical emergency, the insurance would come through.
Yes every insurance policy is different Michelle. You really have to take the time to read the policy to ensure you are covered for everything or if you need to add on any extras eg. coverage for photographic equipment.
We’ve been lucky so far not to have much of this happen to us, but there was one trip to England I went on in 07 to see family and I spent the entire 4 days sleeping in bed, I was soooooo sick! 🙁 Only on the last day did I manage to see some of London and my family. I felt like such a burden! #TheWeeklyPostcard
Oh what a shame Lolo, unfortunately not much you can do about a general virus other than wait it out. Of course if the virus hits just before you travel and will create issue if you fly eg. blocked ears then you can go to the doctors to possibly make a claim to not travel.
Yes always better to be safe than sorry! My main concern is always health costs, so I usually only get travel insurance when I travel internationally since my health insurance wouldn’t cover that. Depending on the situation I can see your points about getting insurance sometimes even for domestic trips. #TheWeeklyPostcard
I ahve to admit I am guilty of only getting travel insurance for international travel as well, Anisa.