Travel Insurance: Should you get it?

I know a lot of people that travel without insurance and I also know quite a few people that get it. Honestly, I think it is foolish to NOT get it since as insurance goes, it is one of the cheapest kinds of insurance a person can possibly get. For something like $60 a month (the last I purchased some of it) it covers all manner of things and for me it is just silly to try to save money on not getting it because the list of things that it covers are pretty great.

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For starters, it an all seem a bit overwhelming because there are thousands of companies that offer this service and in many instances it will be offered by the website that you book your flight with. You need to shop around a bit and make sure that you don't pay for coverage that you don't need. For example, I have a travel-oriented credit card that I pay for my flights with. This card ALREADY covers me for any of the things that can go wrong with the flight and many travel insurance companies charge for this totally optional coverage. It can include flight delays or cancellations as well as compensation for lost or delayed luggage arrival. Since I already get this with my travel credit card, I do not need to pay for it again.

One of the major benefits that you need to be looking for with your travel insurance is the medical side of things. I have been all over the world and one of the most common things that can and does happen a great number of people is some sort of accident either while trekking or because they rent a scooter or motorbike and don't understand how dangerous the roads can be to those who are unfamiliar with the rather crazy traffic situations that exist in countries that are not in USA or Western Europe.

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For a lot of people this wasn't just the case of their horrible road rash, which is just painful and not terribly expensive to treat but it was the cost of the motorbike repairs that can absolutely ruin their travel budget. Unfortunately, there are many places in the world where the companies that rent these scooters see the crashing of one of them as an opportunity to make some quick cash off of a naive tourist who has no idea how much a bike like this costs, let alone how much it is to repair it. Also, many of these places don't exactly have a fantastic and fair police force so you can expect to not get much help here.

If you have travel insurance with a large company, they will intervene on your behalf with local representatives and negotiate for you... as well as pay for it. Nothing motivates an insurance agent quite like having to spend their own company's money - so you can rest assured. This doesn't mean that you should drive drunk or like a looney tune because there are almost certainly some "fine print" in there that disqualifies you from coverage if it is determined there was negligence on your part.

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There is also coverage for theft of items such as wallets, phones, laptops and other such things that according to a friend of mine who worked in the travel insurance industry, they don't really even bother to find out if what you are stating is actually true. Normally, if you are able to get a police report for the fact that your items were stolen (which every country I have been to will provide because they know it is just for insurance) you will be refunded the value of that item. This doesn't mean that they are going to buy you the latest and greatest I-Phone but at least you can be compensated to a certain degree.

I have done it both ways: I have traveled with and without travel insurance and I'll say that I definitely feel a lot better and safer when I know that I am covered should the unfortunate happen to me. Since this only adds about 4 to 5% to my overall travel cost, the peace of mind is totally worth it to me.

I don't have a specific company to recommend because the rules are different depending on what your country of origin is. I do know that they try really hard to make a sale so just shop around and also make sure that the company actually has a presence in the country that you are traveling to.