You’re packed, you’re prepped, you’re ready to take on the trip of a lifetime. But what if something goes wrong and it impacts your trip? As travel becomes busier and crazier, travel insurance is becoming more of a necessity. But is travel insurance worth it? What does it cover? And what travel insurance is best? I’m answering all those questions and more, including 10 reasons why you NEED travel insurance for your next trip.

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Different travel insurances cover a variety of options but the key components generally are:

• Medical emergencies and expenses
• Trip cancellation
• Baggage and personal belongings
• Emergency medical transport

Okay… but what exactly does that mean? Let’s break those down with some example scenarios in this next section.

Picture this: you and your partner are three days into your honeymoon in Bali when you start to get painful stomach cramps and a few hours later, you start to run a fever. You realize you need emergency medical care and you aren’t sure where to go. What do you do?

With travel medical insurance, you will be able to get help to find medical facilities, assistance in your own language, and be able to get the care you need so you can avoid that scary moment of not knowing what to do when you aren’t feeling well. Additionally, medical emergency care abroad can be very expensive, so having travel insurance could save you a huge medical bill.

You are hiking in New Zealand with your friends when you stumble over a rock and twist your ankle; and you realize you can’t finish the hike. Your friends aren’t sure they can carry you and you can’t bear weight on the injury, so your friends call for an emergency medical evacuation. Sound expensive? Without coverage, you could be paying thousands and thousands of dollars for this assistance. You never think something is going to happen to you, but for the time it does, you’ll be grateful you invested in travel insurance to save you money in the long run.

You’re supposed to leave next week for the trip of a lifetime: a safari in South Africa. As you pack, your mother calls. She says a family member has passed and she needs your help with the arrangements. You cancel the trip right away and book a new flight to be with your family instead. This incredible trip you had planned to South Africa was an investment, one that you might not get back unless you have trip cancellation coverage. With the right insurance, many of your expenses will be covered and you can re-book the trip for a later date.

Disaster strikes the night before your trip – a hurricane has destroyed the hotel you were supposed to stay at, and your destination is full of chaos and uncertainty. With travel insurance protection for weather damage, you can get help changing your trip to a new location, and you can get your pre-paid expenses covered as well.

Has this ever happened to you? You are all settled into your flight when the pilot announces there is a mechanical issue and you have to wait for maintenance to look into the issue and get it resolved before you can take off. You check your watch and start to stress, your connection between your next flight is already tight. The plane finally takes off, but by the time you land, your next plane is long gone and it’s too late at night for any more connecting flights. If you have a plan with trip interruption coverage, you can stay in a hotel and get your stay covered, as well as coverage for the new plane ticket.

You arrive in San Francisco and you are so excited to explore the city, but you’ve been waiting for your bag to appear in the carousel for thirty minutes and it hasn’t arrived. The carousel shuts off, you ask airport staff for help locating your luggage, and they hesitatingly say they aren’t sure. You leave for your hotel with nothing but the clothes on your back with an entire week of travel plans ahead of you. With coverage for delayed bags, your insurance reimburses you for the cost of the essential items you had to buy on the first day of your trip.

You just bought the latest camera and you are so excited to capture all of the incredible wildlife in the Galapagos. About halfway through the trip, another passenger on your boat tour bumps into you and it knocks the camera right out of your hands and into the water. The boat crew sees and manages to jump in and retrieve the camera for you, but it’s totally waterlogged and won’t turn on. Without your travel insurance, you might be out hundreds of dollars that you spent on your gear.

You are an avid traveler and you already have all the best travel credit cards that cover baggage delays, rental car damage, and trip delay. But you are worried about your parents who are traveling with you, as they are getting older and aren’t in their best health. You double check your credit cards and realize medical coverage isn’t included, so you decide to get travel insurance for the whole family for peace of mind in case anything happens.

You are embarking on a bike tour in France and your tour company informs you that you are required to purchase travel insurance and submit proof of coverage or else you won’t be allowed to join the tour. This has actually happened to me quite a few times, and it does make a lot of sense for the tour companies, so having a go-to travel insurance that you trust and fits your budget makes this item on your travel checklist a breeze.

You arrive in Spain and call your tour company to get checked in and start your adventure, but the line is dead. You jump on the airport wifi to search online for another number only to find that your tour company has gone out of business! You scramble to find another tour to book so your trip can continue, but you’re worried that now you’ll be out of money from the original tour. With a good travel insurance plan, you can get the cost of that original tour or the new tour reimbursed so your trip can go on as planned.

You’re probably getting the idea by now why travel insurance could be vital for your next trip, but it’s also not always a perfect solution to every problem that could come up. Certain plans may cover different components of your travel, so it’s important to research EXACTLY what will be covered.

Some of the things that travel insurance might not cover could include: pre-existing conditions, pandemics and epidemics, political unrest, pregnancy, changing your mind about a trip or not being able to afford a trip, local riots and protests, extreme sports, alcohol or drug related incidents, and stolen passports.

Again, researching the right plan to match your trip and specific needs is the most important part of getting travel insurance.

The cost of travel insurance depends on the details of your individual trip, so the best practice is to request a quote through the travel insurance’s website. Below I’ve listed my top three favorite travel insurances, so I definitely recommend checking them out and requesting a quote. 

In my experience, travel insurance has always been cheaper than I expected and well worth the investment. For example, I took out travel insurance on a trip to Turks & Caicos where I was scuba diving and I was worried about equalization issues preventing me from diving, since I had been sick not too long before the trip. It ended up being well under $100 for the entire week, which was so worth it to me since dive trips can be quite an investment, and not every insurance covers scuba diving as it could be considered an “extreme sport.”

There are so many travel insurances out there, but here are my top three that I recommend and use on my own travels:

World Nomads is an affordable travel insurance option that I recommend to pretty much everyone. It covers emergency medical, trip cancellation, 24/7 emergency assistance, baggage coverage, adventure activities, and more. It is an especially great pick for backpackers, adventurous travelers, and active travelers, as it covers a lot of activities other insurances do not. It’s also recommended by some of the biggest names in the travel industry.

Trust me, having this travel insurance is worth the peace of mind! Get a quote for your trip here.

SafetyWing is specifically built for digital nomads which is INCREDIBLE. It’s actually run and designed by digital nomads and expats so they are already well versed in exactly what long-term travelers need. If you’re embarking on a longer trip away from home or studying abroad, I definitely recommend signing up with SafetyWing to have your medical and travel needs covered. Anytime I have longer travel plans than just a few weeks and I know I’ll be working on the road, I use SafetyWing, as it saves me a TON of money compared to other plans – which are affordable for shorter trips, but begin to get prohibitively expensive for longer adventures.

SafetyWing covers emergency medical care, eligible medical and dental coverage, trip interruption, travel delay, lost checked luggage, natural disaster, political evacuation, and emergency medical evacuation. Get SafetyWing for your trip here.

Travel Insurance Master is another one I recommend to pretty much every traveler, as it has some of the best variety of plans designed for single trips or multiple trips (if you are traveling from country to country without returning home), so it’s kind of the best of both worlds. Travel Insurance Master works with multiple travel insurance providers, so it is fantastic for finding the exact insurance fit for your trip. This saves you a ton of time researching and comparing plans, as Travel Insurance Master has them all in one place.

Travel Insurance Master’s benefits can also cover much more than a lot of other plans, from hurricane and weather to trip cancellation, family coverage and coverage for children under 17, employment layoff, and much more, so depending on your chosen destination or situation this could be the ideal insurance for you. Get your trip covered by Travel Insurance Master here.

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