Travel Minute — Travel Insurance: The Basics

This week’s Travel Minutes will concern themselves with what travelers ought to take away as lessons from the Costa Concordia disaster.  Let’s start with a basic question: Should you buy travel insurance?

The answer is: If you travel frequently you should have annual protection.  If you only take one or two trips a year consider purchasing coverage for the individual trips when needed.

But travel insurance can be a complicated thicket.  Lots of things are covered, some are not, and policies vary.  I asked an executive at Travel Guard one of the country’s leading travel insurance companies and a sponsor of my weekend radio show, how having a TravelGuard policy helped several survivors of the Costa Concordia tragedy.

Their policies, which cost five to seven per cent of their total trip, could cover the loss of baggage and personal effects that went down with the ship.  It also covers emergency medical expenses and medical evacuation, though no survivors apparently required that.  And it provided assistance replacing IDs, passports, arranging flights home, and relaying messages back to families. 

Typical policies include trip cancellation, delay or interruption coverage, as well.