<p>My one second-hand experience with renters insurance: My brother rented an apartment, and then moved to another state, to another apartment. He had all his possessions in his car while he was moving. While he was sleeping in a hotel on his way from one to the other, all his things were stolen from his car. The contents would have been covered under his renters insurance if he hadn’t canceled the policy. He made the mistake of thinking his car insurance would cover the loss, but it didn’t. </p>
<p>Not all insurance is worth the premium, but some is. As HImom pointed out, it’s a risk/benefit analysis. I always think “what’s the worst that can happen?” and then insure or not based on my ability to cash-flow the “worst”.</p>
<p>DH and I are going on a cruise in a few months. He has serious pre-existing conditions, so I purchased trip insurance within a few days of booking the cruise. We are close enough to sail date now that the fare is 100% non-refundable. If either of us is unable to travel, we will get the cruise fare back. If a family member becomes ill and I need to stay home to care for them, we get the cruise fare back. (Not to mention all the other coverage should something happen while on the cruise!)</p>
<p>One caveat about pre-existing conditions: you must be “fit to travel” on the day you purchase the insurance.</p>
<p>msmayor makes an excellent point. Many travel insurance policies fill in some pretty significant gaps in medical coverage for those with U.S.-based health insurance policies. </p>
<p>Twice during my travels I have seen firsthand how valuable travel insurance can be in emergent health situations (once where a man got a compound fracture in a smaller city in Peru (he needed to get to a major city for treatment) and once where a young woman developed a high fever while touring through the French countryside). In my opinion, travel insurance is a smart purchase if only for the medical coverage that many policies provide.</p>
<p>It seems to me that if you travel reasonably often, it makes little sense to buy trip cancellation insurance, unless it’s really cheap, for the same reason it makes little sense to buy the replacement insurance for your new DVD player.</p>
<p>In other words, how many trips would you have to take before the cost of all that trip cancellation insurance would add up to the cost of an average trip?</p>
<p>I certainly agree that medical coverage might make for a different calculation.</p>
<p>Hunt - I don’t understand your theory of traveling often negating the need for travelers insurance. Money is money, I don’t want to lose it whether I travel once a year or once every five years.</p>
<p>I just spoke to a great rep from InsureMyTrip. Our airfare and hotel costs are $10k, non-refundable. For $200 I can get trip cancellation or interruption insurance. To me, that’s a no-brainer. </p>
<p>Now if someone breaks a leg the week before, we aren;t out that money. If one of our elderly parents gets hospitalized, the policy pays for us to fly home early. </p>
<p>It also covers medical expenses and medical evacuation, plus some incidentals like lost baggage etc.</p>
<p>I cannot see the downside to this. The $200 is worth my peace of mind that I won’t be out $10 grand. A lot can happen in the 2 months til our trip and as I stated earlier, 3 of us hit the ER unexpectedly last year alone!</p>
<p>I have used both TravelGuard and TravelSafe…fortunately I have not yet been required to do anything with them!</p>
<p>But considering how close I came to having a trip canceled last year due to a volcano and that the trip I’m taking this year has already had one major change due to a revolution, I think it is very wise indeed to take insurance. If you need it, it is money well spent. I think the total for insurance on our cruise in June is $200…I can afford to lose that; not the $10K + this is costing. </p>
<p>We cannot control everything, but it is wise to control what we can.</p>
<p>$200 is pretty cheap, compared to a $10,000 trip. But if, over a period of years, you took 50 such trips, it would be the same to lose the cost of one trip vs. paying for all that insurance.</p>
<p>This principle is easier to see if you have to pay, say $50 for an extended warranty for a $300 DVD player. If you’ve got more than six electronic gizmos, it makes no sense to pay the extra amount for all of them, because most likely, they won’t all fail.</p>
<p>The problem is, Hunt, that you don’t know which one will break – could be the el cheapo $55 DVD…or it could be the $5,000 State-of-the-Art-Flat-Screen. Actually, tech being what it is, odds are it would be the most expensive thing! </p>
<p>And as for travel, well, maybe you or I will only have one trip go ‘bad’ in our lifetime but as we age, and our families age, the likelihood of something going awry increases. Chances are my DH wouldn’t have a heart attack at 35…but at 65? Alternatively, chances are my child wouldn’t have a heart attack at all…but she might break a leg skiing. So I’ll go on getting trip insurance just because there are so many things that can go wrong. Volcanoes and revolutions and fires in the engine rooms and pirates and…you name it. </p>
<p>Hmmm, maybe I should stay home? Nah!</p>
<p>I only hope I’ll be able to take 50 more adventures!!!</p>
<p>$50 for coverage on a $300 would not really be a good deal…that’s over 15% of the cost.</p>
<p>But if I consider my travel insurance of $94 for a $2,000 trip? That’s about 4.5% of the cost.</p>
<p>Yes, its true that if I saved that $94 and went on 20 trips I would have saved enough to ‘cover’ one trip. But if the one trip I need coverage on is the second one I take, well I may not have enough savings left to take the third or fourth. </p>
<p>I will point out that I only get trip insurance if we’re talking about significant non-refundable costs. I’m not going to insure a $200 or $300 deposit…I can absorb that kind of loss as if it were a deductible.</p>
<p>I view it as car insurance. I pay it and hope I never need it.</p>
<p>In my way of thinking, having insurance “insures” more than just the non-refundable portion of a trip. Medical expenses can rise quickly, especially if there is a need to be transported from outter podunk to a decent hospital, or from overseas to your local hospital. </p>
<p>Imagine you have a stroke, and in the process you fall and break your hip on the last day of your overseas vacation. You will be in a hospital (which probably won’t be covered by your US medical insurance) for quite some time. If the hospital you’re in is sub-par, how much will it cost you to be transported to a decent hospital? How much does it cost to have a translator help you and your doctors communicate? Where will your spouse or traveling companion stay while you’re in the hospital, and who will cover that expense? How much will it cost to rebook your flight home? (if your cheapo fare class isn’t available anymore, you could wind up paying a LOT more) The list of expensive stuff goes on and on!</p>
<p>I’d rather pay the insurance premium, and have the peace of mind that if something awful happens, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the money part.</p>
That’s probably true, but if you’re like a lot of people, you have a lot of electronic gizmos (particularly if you look at it over a period of time). Cell phone, several generations of iPod, that TV, the old TV, DVD player, stereo, etc. The extended warranties for all that stuff together might well be enough to repair the flat-screen TV. Also, think of this: how many things have you had break while under extended warranty? And how many have you had break after the warranty expired? If you’re like me, it’s a lot more of the latter. That might mean that it’s better to save that warranty money to fix or replace the older stuff.</p>
<p>As for the travel insurance being needed if you have to cancel your second trip, that’s a good point, if you don’t have the funds available to pay for the next trip. If you do, though, it doesn’t matter if it’s the second trip or the thirtieth that you have to cancel. I would also note that if you have to cancel a vacation, there is a good chance that you won’t be able to “replace” it before your next vacation anyway. So you would have been out the same amount of money whether you took the vacation or not.</p>
<p>Again, all this may change if you need medical coverage that’s in the insurance. But I think some forms of insurance don’t make sense if you really look at the risks, costs, and benefits.</p>
<p>If a person has planning on taking 4 trips in their life, and their second trip is cancelled and they aren’t able to take it, why could they then not afford the third or fourth?</p>
<p>It’s not like the 2nd vacation will bring in revenue to pay for the 3rd or 4th, unless your vacations are more lucrative than mine.</p>
<p>After a few issues, I buy trip insurance. One was my D being stuck in Mexico City while transiting there and missing a flight due to a customs slowdown. I’d booked on Expedia, who were unable or unwilling to help, the airline, American rebooked her the next day but charged me for it. Her entire ‘stuck’ experience cost me around $250. </p>
<p>Usually I buy from STA travel, who sell trip insurance to anyone, and cover multiple issues. </p>
<p>Some of the issue, is ability to assume risks. Being an older traveler, yet less able to absorb a massive economic loss, less willing to roll with the punches and sleep on a linoleum floor if stuck somewhere, I want the freedom to take care of myself if stuck or injured. Time is tight, money is tight, I want to be sure everything will work out.</p>
<p>“Cancel for any reason” insurance usually has to be bought within 15 days of booking the tickets. You can still buy insurance to cover medical cancellations after that. Extra insurance to cover emergency medical expenses would be very cheap for a young person on a short trip, and would save lots of hassle if anything happens. With his home policy, he would probably have to pay any expenses up front and try for reimbursement later.</p>
<p>So we have a wide range of different losses that we’re talking about travel insurance covering. We have:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Trip cancellation insurance, which covers the cost of the trip if the person going cancels for a covered reason. (That’s the one I’m referring to as trip insurance)</p></li>
<li><p>Medical insurance, which covers the cost of medical care that may be needed while the person is on the trip.</p></li>
<li><p>Services to support the traveler while on the trip in case flights get cancelled, hotels become unavailable, hurricanes destroy the town, etc, etc. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The cheapest insurance plan will cover only some of these with many strings, the most expensive plans will cover all of them with fewer strings.</p>