You just invested upwards of $5,000 of your precious savings on the adventure travel trip of a lifetime. One week before your women’s trip, you sprain your ankle. You could still go, but you won’t be able to participate in many, if any, of the activities on the trip. Reluctantly, you cancel the trip, knowing you won’t get a refund. But wait! Because you bought travel insurance when you booked your trip with AdventureWomen that covers cancellation for medical issues, all you have to do is call to rebook for next year!
Travel Insurance: Yea or Nay?
Our guests at AdventureWomen often ask us if travel insurance is worth it. Our answer is a resounding “yes!” We strongly recommend purchasing travel insurance.
There are many different travel insurance companies, plans, and coverage levels to choose from. When we travel, we typically use Travel Guard, which includes three tiers of insurance plans to choose from: Platinum, Gold, and Silver. Within those tiers, there are then different benefit packages to choose from. We use Travel Guard because this company has a good reputation for honoring claims and processing them quickly.
Because, however, everyone has different needs and different budgets, there is no one right answer when it comes to travel insurance. We suggest comparing a few different insurance policies and shopping for quotes to determine which insurance plan is the best fit for you.
The Top 5 Reasons to Buy Travel Insurance
Buying travel insurance just makes economic sense. Here are the top six reasons our guests tell us that they find that travel insurance well worth the extra expense:
#1. Covering Family Emergencies. Are you a caretaker for a family member? Travel insurance can be essential to protecting you if you have to cancel your trip because of a family emergency where you need to drop everything to care for the needs of an elderly parent or a child.
#2. An Unexpected Illness or Injury. Imagine you do suddenly sprain your ankle, break your leg, or need emergency surgery suddenly in advance of your trip and can’t recover in time – we have seen all these things happen at AdventureWomen. Travel insurance can cover these unfortunate circumstances.
#3. Chronic Medical Conditions. If you have a chronic condition which causes an episode precluding you from being able to take your trip, travel insurance can protect you from loss of your trip deposit and payment investments.
#4. Travel Delays, Missed Connections & Lost Baggage Woes. How often have we all experienced flight delays due to mechanical failures or bad weather, missed connections, trip delays, and/or lost or damaged luggage? Did you know that travel insurance may cover these situations? And, if you miss your connection to meet your AdventureWomen group and need a private transfer, travel insurance may even reimburse you for this special circumstance.
#5. The Need for Medical Evacuation While On Your Trip. This is the most basic level of travel insurance coverage. While highly unlikely, purchasing medical evacuation coverage is very inexpensive relative to the cost of medical evacuation if you don’t have travel insurance. Should anything happen to you while you’re traveling, this protection is well worth the cost.
All in all, buying travel insurance is just a rational decision ensuring “peace of mind”. An AdventureWomen trip is your time to relax! You don’t want to have worry about trip cancellations or costly, complex contingency plans.
When To Purchase Travel Insurance
Last but not least, if you opt to buy travel insurance, purchase it within the first two weeks of paying your deposit for your trip to ensure that you are fully covered. In addition, some states even allow you to purchase “cancel for any reason” insurance if you purchase it within the first two weeks of booking your trip.
You can always change the amount of insurance coverage for your plan after you submit your final trip payment, but do note, you can’t go back and add it retroactive to the date you submitted your deposit. Early coverage is the only way to ensure coverage for such things as a preexisting medical condition, financial default, and a few other scenarios that are time-specific. We can’t stress this point enough. You can, of course, buy insurance later, but it won’t cover these special cases.
We always want our travelers at AdventureWomen to be as fully informed as possible when making your travel plans. We always say “travel wise and you’ll travel well”.
