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Maybe you have seen a post or pin floating around about travel insurance. Or maybe you have read my posts that mention it, or seen another travel blog write about it. But do you really need travel insurance? This post is where I get 100% honest about if you need travel insurance or whether it is something you can skip.
*This post is sponsored by Allianz Travel Insurance. Even though they are sponsoring this post, I am giving my 100% honest opinion on if you should invest in Travel Insurance. All opinions are my own.
Do you really need travel insurance? Need is such an interesting word. And I guess I would have to say the answer is no. Yep…I just said you don’t NEED travel insurance. You can travel without it. But would that be smart? That may be a different answer.
We Recently Took A Trip Without Travel Insurance
You know I have talked on and on in previous posts about how we have had an annual plan with Allianz Travel Insurance. And that we have been glad to have it many, many times over. (You can read about some of our biggest travel mishaps that travel insurance saved us on for more info.) So why in the world were we traveling without travel insurance.
Okay, if you have read my blog for a while you probably know that we are all about getting the biggest bang for our buck. It is why we get an annual travel insurance plan. Because we travel enough that it makes a lot more sense for us to get the annual plan for our family.
An example of this is I don’t automatically renew a Disneyland Annual Pass when it expires. Instead, I wait until my next trip to get an AP so that it is good for a longer amount of time. Why renew it if I won’t be using it for another three months. If it expires in March, and I won’t be back until June, I would lose out on three months of using it. Does that make sense?
Well, we decided the same thing with our Annual Travel Insurance. It expired in April, shortly after our big Seattle to San Diego road trip. (Yes, we definitely had coverage during that trip.) While we could easily buy another plan and just put a start date for when it was affective, we didn’t know exactly when we would be taking our next trip that was over 100 miles away. We were nailing down a few dates for July, so we decided to wait to purchase.
In the mean time, I headed down to Salt Lake City, Utah with my family. You would think I would go ahead and purchase my annual plan right? No… We were being hosted by a hotel, so we were like…well, the only thing we are paying for is gas, and we have road side assistance insurance…so why would we get travel insurance?
And then we had our carelessness I shared after our vacation. We had our car broken into and robbed. And while it would have been covered other some other insurance plans…all of those had deductibles that were more than the stolen items were worth…because we had a high deductible plan for our home insurance. You know what would have easily covered the theft? Travel insurance.
Does The Average Traveler Need Travel Insurance?
So I get it, you are probably thinking…well Becca, you got careless. Or, well, I don’t have a high deductible home/renters plan. Maybe you are thinking you don’t need travel insurance. Again, need is a funny word. You don’t NEED it to be able to travel, but you will definitely want it.
Here are just some of the things that travel insurance would be able to help you with. These are all things that have happened to friends of mine, or us.
Medical Emergencies
If you were to get sick on vacation and your insurance not cover your services, or you need a nurse to accompany you home, or anything like that…travel insurance will cover it.
- A friend of mine broke her leg on vacation, alone with her kiddo, and could not drive back. She ended up having to book a last minute flight and figure out how to get her car home. She did not have travel insurance. Travel insurance would have helped her get with all of that.
- A relative of mine got extremely sick over seas, and her health insurance wouldn’t cover the medical bills. Thankfully, this friend had travel insurance that took care of her bills.
- I was traveling when my son with a rare blood disorder needed to be hospitalized. I had to check out of my hotel early, losing out on some of the prepaid fees. This was long before we were travel insurance people. Travel insurance would have covered that.
Travel Delays & Lost Luggage
Even when nothing goes wrong that is super tragic, things happen. Travel delays are super common, as is lost luggage.
- Your flights are delayed, due to oh, let’s say a hurricane… like what happened to my friend last year. Yeah, travel insurance will help with those costs.
- When you are on an 18 day road trip, and roads are closed due to flooding, so you have to get a room for the night, Travel Insurance can help with that cost. We almost had that happen during our Seattle to San Diego vacation.
- Your luggage is lost, like happened to another friend when she had to switch flights last minute… Travel Insurance to the rescue!
Basically, what I am getting at here is that travel insurance will help with all those things that go wrong. And the cost is so minimal. We covered our entire family for an annual plan (which we have now purchased!) for just $450. Single trip plans are often around $100 for a family, sometimes less. And that covers all of our travel as long as we go at least 100 miles away. So if we go camping, to visit family, or even a weekend trip to the nexdt state over, we are covered if something goes wrong.
Yes, you can travel without insurance…but you shouldn’t. You never know when something might go wrong. You have health insurance in case you get sick. It is the same concept with travel insurance. You never know when you will need it. We didn’t think we would get robbed on vacation. Especially because the items we left in the vehicle seemed so small. But we were. You just never know.
You can price out your travel insurance by visiting the Allianz Travel Insurance website.
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