There are a large number of websites available to help adopting families, so we’re relying on the U.S. Department of State’s Intercountry Adoption website for this information: in 2010 American families adopted 11,059 children from foreign countries. The State Department has outlined an informative list for adopting parents, including describing the role of the State Department in adoptions, country information, adoption notices and alerts, and more.
Failed Adoption Risk
Unfortunately, failed adoptions are occasionally a reality along the path to adopting a child. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (a 2004 publication), it’s difficult to obtain statistics on failed adoptions for a host of reasons.
By searching through a number of adoption sites, we found the reasons adoptions may fail include:
- The birth mother decides to raise the child instead of giving him or her up for adoption
- The foreign country closes the borders to further adoptions
- Legal red tape delays or completely halts an adoption
All of these reasons are not something an adopting family can predict, and that’s an important factor to consider when you’re considering what kind of travel insurance you need to protect your adoption trip. When an adopting family has invested an amount of money in airline tickets, hotel reservations, etc. to travel to adopt a child, the last thing they need is to lose all that money if the adoption fails.
Single Most Important Coverage for Adopting Parents
For the reasons listed above, the best travel insurance for adopting parents to have is adequate ‘cancel for any reason’. Regular trip cancellation coverage doesn’t list covered reasons that will apply in the case of parents attempting to adopt a child, so calling the travel insurance company to cancel your trip because the adoption went awry will not result in the reimbursement of your trip costs. ‘Cancel for any reason’ coverage, however, will result in 50-100% of your trip costs being returned to you in the event you have to cancel your adoption trip.
Of course, you still need to consider travel medical coverage while on your trip (especially if it’s outside your home country and outside your health insurance network) as well as protections like baggage coverage, travel delay, etc.
We wish all parents hoping to adopt the best adoption trip possible, but just in case, be sure you think through your travel insurance options so you have the financial protection you need.
