Professor Steve Solosky, The Traveling Professor

The Traveling Professor Small Group Tours have been bringing travelers to Europe, South American and Canada for over 15 years. A question we often get from our travel clients is, “what kind of travel insurance should I get?”. Here we explain the basics of travel insurance to help you make that decision.

Let’s start by looking at the basic types of travel insurance:

Medical Coverage: This type of insurance covers the costs for caring for illness or accident while traveling. It’s essential to have since most domestic policies do not cover illness/injury overseas, and if they do, it is at the rate of an out-of-network provider. Overseas medical costs are not covered by Medicare at all. This type of insurance can be purchased relatively inexpensively on a per-trip or annual basis.

Emergency Evacuation Insurance: Let’s say you are traveling overseas, and you suffer a serious illness or injury. You probably don’t want to be away from home for surgery or extended treatment. That’s where emergency evacuation insurance comes in. However, emergency evacuation is not cheap. It might cost over $100,000 to fly home to the United States or Canada on a medical evacuation flight. This fee is probably not covered by a domestic insurance policy and not by Medicare. This expense could be devastating but not if you had an emergency evacuation policy. However, this coverage is usually included with an inexpensive travel medical insurance policy.

Trip Interruption/Cancellation: This type of policy provides reimbursement for non-refundable trip payments and deposits if a trip needs to be canceled/delayed for covered reasons such as illness or illness/death of a family member. Some policies provide reimbursement for reasons such as loss/change of job or jury duty. Trip interruption reimburses the insured for increased transportation costs to return home or to continue a trip due to covered reasons. For instance, we had a traveler lose their passport in Peru. They need to return from Cusco to Lima immediately to replace their passport then re-join the tour. All costs were covered including the cost to replace the passport, flights, special concierge services, and hotels. A more common reason for canceling a trip might be because of an injury or illness. Another example of where trip interruption insurance came in useful was when a flight from Boston to Iceland was delayed because of bad weather. An overnight stay was required at a hotel until a flight could be rescheduled for the next morning. No reimbursement was provided by the airline. However, trip interruption insurance covered the cost of hotel plus meals. Some policies cover lost/delayed baggage expenses and rental car insurance. Here is a tip: if a flight is canceled and an overnight stay is required at a hotel, call the hotel to book a room first, then call the airline to re-book. Experience tells me that there is always a scramble for hotel rooms when flights are canceled. Quick action can make the difference between getting a room or not.

Every travel insurance policy is different. Be sure to read and understand the terms and coverage of any policy you may purchase.