Understanding Travel Insurance - Introduction

Introduction

Traveling can be exciting and rewarding, but it can also be expensive when the unexpected occurs far from home such as sickness or injury, travel delay, baggage loss, or worse. In the past decade medical costs have increased dramatically worldwide and even countries with subsidized National Health plans now demand payment in full from foreign visitors for medical services rendered. At the same time travel suppliers such as airlines, and tour operators worldwide have made cancellation policies more restrictive, so if you have to cancel a trip it's likely that a substantial portion of your pre-paid travel expenses will not be refunded, and if you have to interrupt a trip mid-way, a last minute, one-way economy fare return-flight is now likely to be more costly than ever. Moreover, the reality of global terrorism, increased travel industry bankruptcies, global economic instability, and the overall unpredictability of life today causes many people to seek ways to minimize the unique financial risks associated with travel.

As a result, savvy travelers purchase travel insurance in order to protect against the potentially staggering financial costs resulting from crises such as the cancellation of a big trip due to death or illness of a family member or a required emergency medical evacuation.