Do I Need Travel Insurance for My Trip? What the Fine Print Really Means

TRANSCRIPT

 

Hi and welcome to The Traveling Fool, the podcast where we talk about travel destinations, the history and culture around those destinations, along with travel tips and news. I’m your host, Bob Bales, and today we’re going to talk about something that, well, nobody really wants to talk about. But a lot of people ask about it. And that is travel insurance. I know, it’s boring. But you’d be surprised how many people ask about it and how many people wish they had had it. So today we’re going to give you just a quick primer on travel insurance. Do you need it? That’s the first question. You may not. And if you do need it, what does it cover? And more importantly, what does it not cover? So, stay tuned, we’ll be right back.

Hi and welcome back. Now before we get started, do me a favor and hit that like or subscribe button. I would really appreciate it. And if you know somebody that you think might find these podcasts useful or enjoy them, send them a link to it. I’d appreciate that too.

Alright, well let’s get started here. If you’ve ever booked a flight and wondered, well, what if I get sick or have a misconnection or lost suitcase? That could turn my vacation into a huge bill. Well, you’re not alone. And if you’ve ever thought, ah, don’t worry about it. It’s just an extra cost, we’ll deal with it when it happens. Well, for the next hour or so, we’re going to talk about travel insurance. What it is, what it typically covers, what it does not cover, different types you can buy and how to think about things when you as far as limits and deductibles and little special caveats that they put in these insurance things like cancel for any reason clauses. And some steps on choosing the right policy for you.

Now it’s not going to be real boring and detailed. I’m going to at least I’m going to try not to make it boring and detailed. But I’m going to give you enough information so you can figure out one, do I need travel insurance? And two, what does it cover and not cover? And how do I go about getting the best policy? So that’s what we’re going to try and accomplish here. So stay tuned with me and we’re going to jump right into this thing.

Alright, let’s just begin with the simple fact that most U.S. health insurance plans, including Medicare and Medicaid, usually do not pay for medical care outside of the United States. Which means if you get sick overseas, you may be expected to pay up front and seek reimbursement later if they even cover it. Or you may face bills that your domestic plan just won’t touch. Now the State Department and Center for Disease Control both strongly advise travelers to review their health coverage and consider travel health insurance when going abroad. That’s just one reason. Now travel insurance can also protect your prepaid, non-refundable trip costs if an unexpected event cancels your trip. It can also help with emergency medical evacuation if you need specialized care or a Medivac home, cover baggage costs or loss of delay, and sometimes assist when your itinerary goes sideways because an airline cancels a flight and a hurricane closes an airport. Like what just happened in Dominican, correct? In short, travel insurance shifts a financial risk from you to your insurance company, but you’re going to pay a premium for that.

Now, whether that shift is worth it depends on how valuable the trip is, how risky the itinerary is, and what other protections you already have in place. Now the first thing, if you’re traveling domestically, taking a flight from LA to New York, taking a road trip somewhere in Kansas or Missouri, chances are you really don’t need travel insurance. Your current medical insurance will cover it. If you got a credit card, a lot of those credit cards have travel insurance perks with them. Some do, some don’t. Maybe you have a group plan with AAA or something like this that helps cover a few things. So chances are you do not need to buy a travel insurance plan for domestic travel. So we’re mainly talking about international travel. And that includes Mexico, for all you people in Texas and stuff that go down to Cancun all the time. That is international, even though it’s shorter than going up to Illinois. It also covers cruises when you take a cruise and go from one island to another. That’s another country. You are traveling internationally, so you may need it in a lot of cases.

Now here’s a few quick numbers that industry analysts and other places recommend for international travel. If medical coverage is your primary concern, consider at least fifty thousand dollars in emergency medical coverage and a hundred thousand dollars in medical evacuation coverage. Those are your baseline targets here. They’re not hard and fast rules. You may need more depending on where you’re going or what you’re doing. So like I said, do you even need travel insurance? Well, if you’re traveling internationally and you want protection beyond what those domestic health plans and credit card benefits provide, then the short answer is yes. If your trip is cheap and last minute and you’d be willing to eat a loss equal to the trip price, you might decide otherwise.

So, let’s talk about what the main types of travel insurance policies are. Because you know these insurance companies, they’re gonna nothing’s straight simple. There’s a half a dozen different or more policies out there. So let’s talk about the main types comprehensive or trip protection policies. These are for single trips. I’m going from Dallas to the Bahamas and back. That’s my trip. That’s a single trip. Okay, these are all in plans that bundle several coverages, which cover trip cancellation, trip interruption, emergency medical, emergency medical evacuation, baggage delay or baggage loss, travel assistance services where you get like 24/7 hotlines and concierge help locating local doctors. Single trip policies cover one journey from the purchase date through the trip’s end and are tailored to that itinerary. If you’re buying coverage for a big wedding, honeymoon, or an expensive non refundable vacation, a single trip comprehensive policy is often the right choice. You have to compare plans carefully. Comprehensive means different things with different insurers. So look at those plans. It’s single trip, comprehensive policies.

A lot of companies also offer annual policies, which cover multi-trips. These are the ones that cover multiple trips over a twelve month period, and they’re often more cost effective if you’re traveling frequently, such as business travelers, or people who take several leisure trips a year. Now, annual plans commonly emphasize emergency medical coverage and evacuation, and may offer fewer bells and whistles than single trip comprehensive policies. For instance, some annual plans limit trip cancellation benefits or exclude certain per trip limits. But if you travel frequently and maybe have lower cost trips, an annual policy definitely makes sense. Then you need to look into that.

There are also policies called medical only travel insurance. These policies are just travel medical insurance policies, that’s it. They focus on medical expenses overseas and medical evacuation. They don’t reimburse you for any non-refundable trip costs if you cancel. Now, for many international travelers, particularly those who have a refundable or flexible trip arrangements, but don’t have good foreign medical coverage, a medical-only policy is budget friendly and an easy way to ensure your emergency care is affordable. Now, I’ve traveled a lot internationally, and if you’re going to some of these places, and we’re going to get into this more later on your activities at these places, a medical only travel insurance policy makes a lot of sense.

Now, as with any other kind of insurance in the world, there are add-ons that you can do, such as, and one big one, they call it CFAR, which is cancel for any reason. It’s an upgrade that you can add to some policies that reimburses a certain percentage, usually 50 to 75% of your prepaid, nonrefundable trip costs, if you cancel for any reason, not just the listed covered reasons. CFAR, or cancel for any reason, is very attractive when plans are, you know, they’re uncertain, but it’s more expensive, often 40 to 50% more than standard travel insurance. And typically you need to purchase it shortly after your initial trip deposit, usually within 10 to 21 days, depending on which insurer you’re going with. And it usually requires that you cancel at least 48 hours before departure to be eligible. So you can’t decide two hours for the flight leaves, okay, I’m gonna cancel this flight and get my money back. They’re not gonna cover it. Typically, you need to do it at least 48 hours in advance. It’s a tool for flexibility, but it is costly. I mean, you will pay for this.

Now there’s also a medical evac-only policy, evacuation. Now, if your primary worry is about needing urgent medical transportation to some higher level facility or back home where you live in some type of an emergency you’re in, then evacuation only coverage may be a pretty economical choice. Medivac can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars if air ambulance or long distance transport is required. So this coverage can prevent catastrophic bills. And many travelers just pair medical only policy with a good evacuation coverage. And then you get into specialized policies. And these are for well, adventure sports, uh cruises, students, and expats and long-term travel. If you plan on going scuba diving or jumping out of airplanes, engaging in high risk activities, check whether or not the policy covers those activities, or it may require a rider. Not all of them do, but some do.

If you’re going on a cruise, cruise travel policies can include cruise specific protections like missed port coverage. If you’re a long term expat, now I worked overseas for many years, but I had decent medical coverage while I was there, so I didn’t need this. But if you’re a long term expat, an expatriate living and working in some foreign country, extended stays often require different insurance, international medical plans, expat health insurance, rather than just short-term travel policies. What people will tell you in the industry is that if you’re an expat living overseas for an extended period of time, you need a more durable health solution than travel insurance.

Now there’s a lot of terms they use in these policies, such as cancel interruption versus delay versus missed connection versus baggage. I mean, what does all that nonsense mean? Well, trip cancellation reimburses prepaid, non-refundable trip costs if you must cancel for a covered reason before you depart. So things like illness or immediate family member got really sick, or jury duty, or certain natural disasters, documented employment changes, or it could even cover severe weather causing cancellation. Trip interruption is different. It reimburses an unused portion of the trip and possible extra travel costs to return home if you must end the trip early for a covered reason. Now all these policies list all their covered reasons and you need to read all that stuff.

They also have travel delay, which provides daily stipend for reimbursements for meals and lodging if you’re stranded beyond a set time, usually like six to twelve hours. All right, so let’s say you’re flying from Dallas to oh I don’t know, Paris. But you have a layover somewhere in London. I doubt that that’s an actual route, but we’re going to use it for these purposes. So you’re flying from Dallas to Paris and you have a layover in London and something happens to your flight and now you’re stuck overnight. Well, now you get the travel delay kicking in. So if you had that as a rider and you’re stuck there more than twelve hours, because they’ve transferred your flight till tomorrow sometimes airlines will help you out and sometimes they won’t. But if you have travel insurance covering it, you can say, “Well, I don’t care about your $10 meal voucher. I’m going to go get a hotel, my insurance is going to pay for it”.

There’s also things like missed connections. It reimburses costs if you miss connecting flights due to reasons beyond your control. There’s baggage and delay loss, which is reimbursement for essentials if baggage is delayed, and compensation for lost or stolen items. Now all these various things have limits. All this coverage has limits and time windows and documentation requirements, so you must read the policy wordings on your policy. Every insurance company is different, every policy is different. It’s one of them things where, yes, you really do need to read that fine print.

All right, so what does travel insurance usually cover? We talked a little bit about it. It covers emergency medical expenses overseas. This is often the most crucial benefit. If you fall seriously ill or get injured, the policy typically covers hospital bills, doctors’ visits, and sometimes limited dental emergencies. You’re saying, well, I don’t need to go see the dentist to get my teeth cleaned while I’m overseas. No, but what happens if you get in a wreck and you lose half your teeth? It might cover that, get emergency dental surgery. Now, coverage limits very widely. And many advisors recommend you get at least $50,000 for emergency medical coverage for international trips, though you might choose more depending on where you’re going and what your existing health insurance looks like. Even in countries with lower health care costs, emergency care or tests can add up quickly.

Policies also cover emergency medical evacuation and repatriation. Now that covers the transport to the nearest adequate medical facility or back to your home country. An air ambulance flights or long distance medical equipment transport can cost tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars. So you need a separate high limit, which is commonly like a hundred thousand dollars or more, policy for evacuation. That’s what’s recommended if you travel, especially to remote areas or countries without advanced medical care. Evacuation coverage is distinct from the medical coverage. You gotta read all those plans because a plan might cap medical expenses differently than evacuation.

And then we talked about trip cancellation and trip interruption. Trip cancellation reimburses non-refundable trip costs if you cancel before departure for a covered reason. It covers the return home and reimburses for unused trip portions. If you must end your trip early for a covered reason, common covered reasons appear in the policy schedule and often include things like serious illnesses, death of a family member, jury duty, severe weather, natural disasters, and pandemic related reasons are treated differently by different insureds, and you must check explicitly. Now many standard policies cover illnesses from COVID as a reason if you test positive and must cancel. But policies vary. And pandemics created a patchwork of exclusions during the 2020-2023 time frame. And many insurance companies clarified in later years. So always confirm.

Well, what if something happened? What if this happens? You gotta look at those worst case scenarios when you’re looking at this, and just hope that nothing will ever happen, but you have to plan for it. Now, there’s also baggage loss delay and personal effects. So compensation for loss, stolen, or damaged baggage is usually limited per item and then an aggregate, you know, in total. Baggage delay benefits usually reimburse for essentials if your bag didn’t arrive within a set time. If you travel with expensive gear like cameras and jewelry, why you would travel with jewelry, I have no idea. There’s no reason to unless you’re traveling to a fashion show and you’re in it. But I can understand expensive cameras, or maybe you’ve got your laptop with you. So consider a rider or a home insurer endorsement because standard policies can often cap high value items or exclude them altogether.

Keep receipts or proof of ownership of those items when possible. Because you’re gonna have to prove, well, you know, “Somebody stole my eighteen thousand dollar Nikon switch flicks uh auto remote absolute automatic camera.” All right, well let me see a receipt. “Oh, I ain’t got one of those.” Well, you need one. So travel delay and missed connections. These benefits are modest, but they’re helpful. These are stipends for meals and lodging when delays exceed the policy’s threshold. That’s six to twelve hours is normally typical. And reimbursements for costs from missed connections. They’re particularly useful if you have tight itineraries or short cruises that can be derailed by a missed flight.

There’s also twenty 24/7 assistance and concierge services. Now most reputable insurance include this. They have 24/7 assistance hotlines that help arrange medical care, local doctors, translators, emergency cash transfers, and claim initiation. Now that can be a lifeline if you’re stuck in someplace unfamiliar. You need to reach out to someone, it is nice to know that you can call this number. There’s somebody there who knows what they’re talking about, that’s going to walk you through what needs to be done. Now, some policies even cover rental cars. You know, if you rent a car and get in a wreck, they’ll cover it. They have waivers or secondary coverage. Others require a separate add-on feature for that. So if you rely on credit card benefits for rental coverage, verify that the cards rules and whether they apply overseas.

So does travel insurance cover all the onboard cruise costs? Well, let me tell you something. I’m gonna give you just a quick little story here. This just happened. In September of 2025, this year, there was a Texas woman’s cruise that came up with a really unexpected cost. She had a medical emergency on board a Royal Caribbean cruise that was sailing from Galveston to Mexico. Not that far, but we’re talking an international trip now, right? And her family spent more than thirteen thousand dollars out of pocket for medical care. She was taken to an onboard emergency room where doctors said she had internal bleeding. Now an ambulance took her to a hospital which was four hours away from there and the staff asked for upfront payment before they would even talk to her. They said we need to get paid before we even look at her. So after paying $2,500, they were told by the staff, well, we’ll work as far as that $2,500 takes us, and then we’re gonna either need some more money or you’re gonna have to take her out of here. Yes, that’s how a lot of places work overseas. They’re not like the U.S. where it’s like, okay, well, we’ll figure out the bill later and we’ll bill you. No, it’s like you pay me $2,500, that’s as far as we’re gonna take this. You’re gonna have to come up with some more, or you’re gonna have to get her out of here. So then when it was all over and after being admitted, the family received an itemized bill that wound up totaling $9,970 from the foreign medical facility. Now they also had a bill from their cruise ship for the onboard medical facilities. That cost over $4,000. And they also spent money on flights and lodging in Mexico. They finally wound up getting her back to Houston, but you could see what a nightmare this was. Wind up paying over thirteen thousand dollars in a foreign country to both your cruise line and this hospital, and then you have to worry about finding a place to stay, getting flights home, worrying about transfers and getting back. It’s a mess.

So yes, a lot of travel insurance plans cover onboard cruise ship costs for medical emergencies, including care from the ship’s infirmary, emergency medical evacuation, and even potential trip interruption if you have to end the cruise early. However, the specific coverage depends on the policy, so it’s crucial that you check these details, especially regarding medical coverage limits and any exclusions like pre-existing conditions. Now what they typically cover, like I said, typically isn’t everybody. It varies by policy and injure. But it typically covers onboard medical care. Expenses for services and supplies from the ship’s infirmary, physician services, and medication are often covered up to your policy limits. Emergency evacuation. Now, this is a key benefit as medical emergencies on cruise ships can require evacuation to the nearest hospital. Remember they took that girl from the ship to a four-hour trip to a hospital? That’s medical evacuation. A service that can be very expensive now. Travel insurance can cover these costs. Which domestic health insurance, like Medicare and credit card policies and things like that, they often don’t cover it. Then you’ve got trip interruption. If a covered illness or injury forces you to cut your cruise short, this coverage can help reimburse you for the unused portion of your trip, along with other medical expenses. I mean, it can cover things such as x-rays, lab fees, hospital stays in a port city if needed.

So what to check before you buy? Medical coverage limits. Ensure the policies, medical and emergency medical evacuation limits are sufficient for your destinations. Costs can vary significantly for various regions. Does it have any policy exclusions? Pay very close attention to those exclusions, such as for pre-existing medical conditions which may not be covered or may require you to have a separate rider. Third party versus cruise line insurance. I know some of these cruise lines have their own insurance that they’ll sell you. And while they those seem convenient, independent policies often provide for higher coverage limits and protect you for the entire trip, including pre and post cruise travel like flights and hotels, and non-medical calls. Some plans cover things for other cruise related issues like lost baggage or ship disablement.

So what does travel insurance not cover? And these are the common exclusions. Preexisting medical conditions is a big one. Many policies exclude claims arising from preexisting medical conditions unless you purchase a plan within a policies defined purchase window, which is at ten to twenty one days typically from your trip deposit and you meet other requirements. Being medically stable at purchase time is the big one. Now to get coverage for pre-existing medical conditions, look for plans that explicitly offer a pre-existing condition waiver and follow the insurer’s timing rules exactly. So if you have like chronic conditions, read that fine print and consider specialized insurers that cover pre-existing medical conditions. Now, one of the other things that they typically do not cover is high risk activities. Many policies exclude injuries from certain adventure or high-risk sports. And these can include base jumping, some scuba diving events, and deep sea diving. That’s excluded. And professional sporting events. Unless you buy an adventure sports rider, always check the policies activity list and purchase appropriate add-ons for risky activities.

So you’re gonna go to Thailand, you’re gonna have fun, and you got your travel insurance in hand, and one day you decide, you know what, I’m gonna go rent that motor scooter. It may not be covered unless you bought an adventure rider for your policy. Tooling around Thailand, you’d be surprised how many people have accidents on those rented scooters. I know I had one in the Philippines. Didn’t hurt myself though, I just got up, brushed myself off, kept going. But people are always having accidents on rented scooters, rented cars, everything else. And that could be considered high-risk activity, even though you’re just tooling around on a scooter.

Intentional acts and illegal activities. If you break the law or intentionally harm yourself, insurers will deny claims. I know every month I put some of these in my monthly newsletter. Some people like them, some don’t, but it’s stupid tourist things. Tourists getting arrested for doing stupid stuff. So if you’re doing stupid stuff like I think it was it might have been a guy, but I’m pretty sure it was lady. She was doing pull-ups from a religious temple in Japan that had, you know, kind of like a wooden archway, and she was jumping up on that thing doing pull-ups, just disrespecting their religion and everything else. They wanted her thrown out of the country, ban her for life. So let’s say you’re doing your pull-ups and you slip, fall, and crack your head on the stone floor below. Well, that was an illegal activity. No, they’re not going to cover you. They’re going to say you were stupid, pay your own medical bills.

So known events at the time of purchase. If you buy a policy after an event has already occurred that will cause a claim. For example, after a hurricane is named and the storm is known to disrupt travel. So before the hurricane hit the Dominican Republic last week, three or four days before, they were telling everybody it’s headed right for the Dominican Republic. Well, if you bought it a policy after that, it’s not going to cover it because they already told you it’s coming there. Now, if you had bought your ticket and plan to travel and all this three weeks before that, before the hurricane ever formed, and all of a sudden there’s a hurricane headed for the Dominican, yep, it will cover it.

It also won’t cover acts of war and civil unrest. Insurance companies can’t predict these things, so coverage for trip cancellation or evacuation due to war or civil unrest is often very limited or even excluded. Some insurers offer political evacuation riders, but they cost extra and have very strict rules. And chances are, if you need to buy one because of where you’re going, you probably shouldn’t go there. Just find another place to visit. Check the State Department’s travel advisories and discuss evacuation options if you plan to travel to a volatile region. And like we talked about COVID earlier, there’s pandemic and communicable disease exclusions. After 2020, many insurers updated their pandemic coverage language. Some policies now cover illness from common communicable diseases. And yeah, COVID is common now, so it’s covered in a lot of cases. And it’ll cover it if you need to cancel due to illness. But coverage for widespread governmental travel bans or advisories can be limited or excluded. CFAR that cancel for any reason writers, sometimes they can fill in the gaps by reimbursing some non-refundable costs for any reason. But it often reimburses less than 10% and has very strict purchase timing rules. So always verify how the insurer treats pandemics and government advisories before relying on a policy for those scenarios.

And a lot of times it doesn’t cover wear and tear, ordinary loss and high value items. Lost electronics or jewelry often face very strict requirements. Many policies cap per item payments to five hundred or a thousand dollars per item. If you bring expensive travel gear, like cameras and things like this, either carry it on and keep all the receipts or arrange for some kind of endorsement for high end equipment. So first thing to do is check your existing coverage. Before you buy any new insurance, just look at what you have. Your current health insurance. Does it have any out of network international coverage? Most plans don’t, but check. Yours might. Credit cards. You got credit cards when you signed up. It said sign up for my credit card and you get all these great benefits, and you forgot what they all are. Go back and look, cause many premium cards include trip cancellation, trip interruption, or primary, secondary car rental coverage. But usually with restrictions like booking must be charged to the card. Some activities are excluded. So read those arrangements and agreements on your credit cards. Homeowner’s insurance. That may offer some protection for personal belongings when traveling. If you have a homeowner’s policy and your camera gets stolen out of your suitcase while you’re traveling through Paris, your homeowners might cover it. So read the agreements. Of course, your homeowners is also going to have very high deductibles and limited per item coverage, so it may or may not be worth it to go through them.

Next, decide your risk threshold. What would a cancelled trip cost me? That’s what you need to ask yourself. If the trip is inexpensive and refundable, now you may not need any insurance. If your trip is one of those once-in-a-lifetime events, a big wedding, an expensive international tour. Travel insurance that includes trip cancellation is strongly recommended. Now I know a lot of people book cruises six, eight, nine months, a year in advance. “Oh, we’ve always wanted to go to Alaska, so we’re booking a trip for 2027. And they’re taking reservations for it right now. I’ve got a state room, it has a balcony. It’s going to be gorgeous, and we’ve got a year and a half to pay for it.” Well, you might want to look at buying travel insurance when you start or even before you buy this thing, or within a few days of putting that deposit down. And that time window, it matters. You need to buy early, especially for pre-existing condition waivers and cancel for any reason waivers. You gotta buy within a very short window of your initial trip payment, like ten to twenty one days for preexisting medical coverage waivers, and often fifteen days for cancel for any reason eligibility. You miss those windows and protections just go right out the window.

Now match your coverage to your destination. Remote destinations, countries with limited medical infrastructure or places where evacuation is costly should push you to a higher emergency medical and evacuation limits. And like I said, most people recommend $100,000 for evacuation limit if you’ll be outside the major cities or in remote areas, things like that. Document everything. If you claim, insurance will demand documentation. They want receipts, police reports for theft, medical records for illnesses, airline delay notifications, and proof of pre-travel purchase deadlines. Keep paper or digital copies and record names, phone numbers, claim reference numbers, everything. Prompt reporting matters. Start the claim as soon as possible. And beware of those too good to be true cheap policies. Now very low premium policies, they probably come with very low limits, large exclusions, and very poor assistance services. So pay attention to the insurer’s reputation and the strength of their assistance network. Check reviews and independent comparison sites.

Since I’m not promoting any any single company here, and I’ve aligned with a couple over the years, there’s a couple of very big ones that are very reputable, and those are the ones you need to go with. If you have pre-existing medical condition, read the exact language for stability requirements. Insurance typically or insurers, getting tongue-tied. Insurers typically require you to be, you know, stable, have no changes in your treatment, no new medications, no recent hospitalization for a set period before you purchase. Otherwise the waiver won’t apply. And if you can’t meet the waiver requirements, consider specialized travel medical plans that do accept pre-existing conditions.

So how do you choose a policy? I mean, good lord, there’s so much stuff going on here. First start with a scenario. Is it a single expensive trip? Is it frequent travel? Is it to a remote destination? Am I gonna be doing stupid stuff like adventure sports? My wife calls them stupid stuff. “Why are you on that motorcycle? That’s stupid.” Well, it’s fun. But it’s also dangerous, according to insurers. So write the trip’s pain points down. Just get a piece of paper and write it down. Where am I going to? What am I gonna be doing? Think about that worst case scenario. I know how to ride a motorcycle. I mean, I ride motorcycles all the time. Nothing’s gonna happen. Well, yeah, it probably will. You’re gonna be riding along, you’re not used to where you’re riding at, something’s gonna happen, you’re gonna flip over, and now you’re gonna break your leg. I’ve never broken a bone in my life. Well, you’re gonna break a leg in Thailand, trust me. Or Peru or wherever you’re riding your motorcycle. So think about that worst case scenario.

Then decide the must-have coverages. Emergency medical coverage, evacuation coverage. It’s gonna, you know, get you out of there into a hospital somewhere. Trip cancellation coverage, baggage coverage, all of that. And look at what you’re gonna cover, like emergency medical, yeah, $50,000 or so, depending on where you’re at. Evacuation, how much is it gonna cost you to get you out of there? Maybe $100,000. So get one with $100,000 coverage. Uh trip cancellation and baggage costs, you know, $1,000 or so based on what you’re traveling with. And look at all that. Then check pre-existing protections. Credit card benefits, what do they cover? Health insurance that you currently have, what does it cover? Homeowner’s policy, what does it cover? And you just fill in the gaps from there. Then compare policies, not prices. Compare the coverage limits, the exclusions, the sublimits and the assistance reviews. Check all the reviews, man, and put those policies side by side. Company A, Company B. This one’s four hundred dollars more for my you know six-month round-world trip. Well, it covers more. That’s why it’s four hundred dollars more. That’s why you compare policies and not prices.

Always read the insurer’s full policy wording before you purchase that thing. And decide on cancel for any reason insurance if it’s applicable. Purchase early if you want it. That’s what they call that CFAR, cancel for any reason. And understand it typically reimburses 50 to 75% of your prepaid costs and more. It’s best for expensive, highly uncertain trips, you know. I booked out a year and a half to go to the Alaska three-week cruise. Well, I might want to buy that. And buy within the qualifying window if you need a pre-existing waiver, typically within 10 to 21 days of the initial trip deposit. And keep all your receipts and documentation from booking confirmations to medical notes, airline notifications, text messages, police reports, keep all of it. And contact that 24/7 assistance line if an emergency arises and do it as soon as possible. Because they’ll often coordinate all the care and help reduce your out-of-pocket expenses.

So, do you need travel insurance? Well, if you’re traveling abroad, especially to places where the U.S. health insurance didn’t follow you, and your trip is costly and non refundable, or your itinerary includes remote places or doing adventure activities, travel insurance can be a very small price to pay for a large peace of mind. And if you’re a frequent traveler, an annual plan with solid medical and evacuation limits may suit you. If you have pre-existing conditions, buy early, follow the insurer’s waiver rules. Timing can be everything. Just remember the three fundamentals. Check what coverage you already have, pick coverage that matches the trip’s financial and medical risk, and read the policy wording and keep all your documents. Also buy within required windows if you want that pre-existing protection or CFAR, the cancel for any reason protection.

So travel is, I mean, it’s meant to expand your life and make things enjoyable. Insurance is not glamorous or inspiring. It’s a tool that helps make the glamorous and inspiring possible without devastating your finances if some unforeseen incident occurs. So use it wisely. And there you have it. The what, why, and how of travel insurance. I told you it’s a little dry and a little boring, but it’s an important topic that you really need to look at if you’re going to be traveling internationally. It’s a sensible tool that you can pack away out of sight, out of mind until you need it.

So that’s it for this episode. I really appreciate you listening. You can hit like or subscribe button wherever you’re listening to this and share it with a friend if you think it might be useful. I’d really appreciate it. And so, until next time, safe travels.

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