I’ll admit, when I first started travelling there were some instances when I didn’t even consider something like travel insurance. I just didn’t think it was all that important because it was sort of an “out of sight, out of mind” scenario. I mean if you visit a country in which you don’t need a visa, since there’s nobody to ask you whether or not you have travel insurance, you kind of automatically assume there’s no need for such things at all – wrongly so, of course.
So we’ve established that travel insurance is indeed a necessity, but now this newly discovered necessity suddenly presents us with some additional costs we now have to incorporate into our travel plans. Sure, it’s often just a couple hundred pounds more than what you’d be spending in total on airfare, accommodation and other aspects of your trip, but as any frequent traveller will tell you sometimes that couple hundred pounds more or less can make for the difference between enjoying your trip for a couple of days less or staying longer. Sometimes it can even make for the difference between going on the trip at all or electing not to go as per the realisation that it’s just not worth the time, effort and cost.
So yes, travel insurance is a big issue and one which should never be overlooked, no matter what the circumstances.
That said however, this doesn’t mean that the most expensive travel insurance package you’re offered is indeed the best one and the one you should always go with. While travel insurance is not quite as complicated as say household insurance, motor insurance, and even life insurance, it still requires a bit of a closer look. It’s not a case of just taking out coverage and you’re fine.
It’ll cost you way too much if that’s the approach you take…
There’s one simple trick to use if you want to save on your travel insurance and that is taking into account everything that could go wrong to the tune of needing a payout from your travel insurance service provider. It’s an extensive and intensive exercise, but fortunately you’ll probably only need to complete it once with every subsequent time only requiring the tweaking of some minor details here and there.
So what you do is imagine yourself on your trip, iterating through all the activities, which admittedly is a fun exercise for the most part. What would happen if you lost your wallet, for example? How much would a Houston criminal defense lawyer cost you if you got into some legal trouble locally?
What would happen if there was a flight delay or a cancellation?
All of these not-so-nice eventualities need to be considered, after which exercise you should match the best travel insurance package offering to those possibilities. Going back to the example of a need for a local lawyer, your travel insurance may in this instance not need to cover such legal services because some of the best lawyers in Houston for example provide free consultations to gauge the “winability” of your case.
