With all the recent noise about ‘can you afford travel insurance’ and ‘should you buy travel insurance’, we thought it was time to address the topic from a different angle – saving money on your travel insurance purchase.

Before we look into how to save money on your travel insurance, let’s review what exactly is travel insurance?

Travel insurance is an agreement between a travel insurance company and an insured traveler ensuring the former will pay for the unexpected costs a traveler encounters on a trip. Just like car insurance, you can choose to purchase a bare-bones travel insurance plan or a full-featured one with all the bells and whistles.

What unexpected costs can a traveler encounter? Well, depending on your style of travel and the trip you’re taking, you could encounter:

• The loss of all your prepaid non-refundable trip costs if you have to cancel your trip or return home to handle an emergency.

• The need to cover the cost for medical treatment outside your health insurance network. Foreign hospitals often require pre-payment before treatment is given.

• A flight delay or the loss of your baggage, meaning you have to come up with more cash to cover alternative transportation or to replace clothing and personal items.

• A very desperate need to be evacuated out of a dangerous situation to a location where you can receive adequate medical treatment for a serious injury.

As with any insurance product, you buy it to protect yourself from catastrophic financial losses and to ensure your own personal safety. Every insured persons hopes they’ll never need their plan, but when they do they’re glad they have it.

All that being said, let’s look at how you can keep your travel insurance costs as low as possible.

1. Don’t insure your refundable trip costs

Think about it. Not all of your prepaid trip costs are non-refundable. Some hotels allow their customers to cancel their reservations provided the traveler calls within a certain time-frame.

Travel insurance plans only cover non-refundable losses, so don’t cover the costs you can recover because that raises the price of your premium.

2. Avoid over-insuring your trip

Lots of travel insurance plans offer multi-millions in AD&D (Accidental Death and Dismemberment) and flight insurance (just like life insurance, but for flight accidents). If you already have adequate life insurance and AD&D, this ‘extra’ coverage is unnecessary and it only serves to raise the price of your premium.

Likewise, many travel insurance plans include car rental collision coverage, but if you already have the same coverage with your own car insurance back home or with your credit card (check to be sure) you’re over-insuring the trip and wasting money.

3. Don’t get too much evacuation coverage

Emergency medical evacuations are expensive affairs, and it’s not something you want to whip out your credit card to pay for, but at the same time it’s not necessary to have too much evacuation coverage.

It’s rare for an evacuation to cost more than a couple hundred thousand dollars – and that’s only for extreme cases where the traveler is in a remote location (the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, for example) and medical care is very far away. Many travel insurance plans offer millions of dollars in evacuation coverage, and for most trips it’s just too much.

4. Avoid ‘cancel for any reason’ if you don’t need it

‘Cancel for any reason’ coverage is nearly always an upgrade, and as such, it adds to your trip insurance cost, but the covered reasons for trip cancellation are often adequate. Plus some plans limit how much a traveler can be reimbursed for with their ‘cancel for any reason’ benefit whereas standard trip cancellation always ensures 100% of the prepaid non-refundable trip costs insured by the traveler.

Spend a little time reviewing the policy details to understand the covered reasons for trip cancellation during your plan’s free review period. Many travelers find that their trip cancellation concerns are already covered, and if they’re not, switch to another plan.

5. Don’t cover cheap, last-minute, or domestic trips

If you’re taking a last-minute, super saver trip within the U.S., you probably don’t need travel insurance. Your health insurance will cover emergency medical care (although at an out-of-network rate in some situations) and since you didn’t pre-pay for a lot of trip costs, then you probably don’t have a lot to lose.

Carry your bags onto the plane yourself instead of checking them in with the airline, and you’ll avoid a lost luggage situation and save yourself even more.

6. Avoid travel insurance purchased on booking sites

It looks too easy and it’s usually pretty cheap, but clicking that checkbox could cause you far more harm than good.

Here’s why:

• The language used to sell the policy doesn’t make the policy details clear

• You have one plan to choose and one only – no price comparisons

• The plan may not cover your needs (as anyone with a pre-existing condition can tell you)

Purchasing your travel insurance from a third-party travel insurance comparison engine gives you far more options. So, you can get the plan you need without a lot of coverage you don’t. Plus, you can price-shop much easier and, in most cases, you’ll pay a lot less than you’d expect.

Recently, we heard from a traveler who was starting her trip in Pennsylvania, going to warm and sunny Florida for a few days, then boarding a cruise ship that would take her through the Panama Canal and deposit her in San Diego. After spending some time in San Diego with friends, this traveler planned to fly to Colorado to do some hiking and later head home. The entire trip would last a little less than four weeks.

This traveler’s trip was scheduled for spring, which meant they would be leaving in cold, possibly snowy weather, going to a warmer climate, back to a chilly climate, and then to warm again. She would be traveling in both very high and very low elevations and, of course, there’s no predicting the weather patterns she could encounter along the way. After all, it can get downright chilly in the upper elevations and out on the water on a cruise ship even in the best of weather.

One of the most difficult challenges of packing light occurs when you’re required to pack for multiple climates. Yet some travelers claim they can pack for any type of weather in just a single bag. So we decided to research the expert recommendations and discover the best tricks for packing for multiple climates in a single bag.

1. Start with a packing list

Lots of frequent travelers have these, but even those travelers who take just one trip a year have some experience putting together a packing list. After all, there are those items that you must have: prescriptions, reading glasses, for example, and there are those items that make you more comfortable along on your trip, like an e-reader, for example.

Ultimately, you want to plan and pack for the ideal, best-case scenario and then purchase your way out of a jam when you have to. If all the layers in your bag just won’t keep you warm in a freak snowstorm, for example, then buy a coat.

Think in terms of what you cannot do without and not what would be handy on your trip. After all, they have stores in other countries too and just imagine the fun of exploring a foreign supermarket on a rainy afternoon!

2. Handle the warmest climate first, then the coldest

Start with the warmest climate you’ll encounter and determine what you’ll wear there. These items may include shorts, a swimsuit, light t-shirts, etc. These become one layer of your clothing strategy. Make sure each piece of clothing can be worn alone and that each piece is also thin enough to add extra warmth when paired with other pieces, which you’ll be adding next.

With your warm-weather pile established, tackle the colder climate. A light fleece adds warmth but it’s no match against wind or rain. A light fleece sweater layered over your warm-weather tank top and under a light rain-proof jacket not only looks good, but is warm and comfy in the wind and rain.

3. Think layers and double duty

Wearing layers of clothing is the only way a traveler can effectively pack for both warm and cold weather, dry and damp conditions. The layers trap heat against the body – keeping you warm – and the outer layers can be removed as the heat builds up and you need to cool down.

Clothing items that work double-duty are the best. Think:

• Light jackets with thumb holes – almost like gloves, hands stay warm

• Ballet flats – work for day and night and great for walking

• Silk underwear – great for warmth under other layers and thin, thin, thin

• Fine gauge sweaters in silk, merino, and cashmere – easy layering and they don’t hold odor the same way synthetics do (easier to wash too!)

• Tights or leggings – work great to keep warm under pants and skirts and great for light wear too (get the ones that don’t cling to other clothing)

Once you’ve got both your warm and cold weather clothing choices in a pile, it’s time to edit.

4. Eliminate, eliminate, eliminate

Now, it’s time to edit ruthlessly. Any item that is edgy or on the cusp – and you know you may not wear it – gets eliminated. Only those items that can be used many times and with many other items go in the suitcase. If necessary, put the outfits together and see how they work with each other.

These items take too much space in your bag and should be eliminated at all costs:

• Sweatshirts

• Blue jeans

• Sneakers/running shoes

• Hiking boots

We recognize that many of these are simply go-to staples in the typical American wardrobe. No problem – wear them on the plane instead of packing them and you’ve got the best of both worlds.

You may not need shampoo, conditioner, body wash or a range of other items if you’re traveling to a hotel that provides them and you aren’t too picky. Eliminate them. No need for a hair dryer either – even cruise ships have these. You don’t need towels either – if where you are going doesn’t have them, why are you staying there?

Note: If you really have to have your own towel (perhaps you’re camping for days or on a cruise ship that’s lost power), try some of the high-tech, quick-drying towels on this site.

5. Identify and control the space hogs

What are the space hogs in any suitcase or bag? It’s your shoes and your electronics. After all, they don’t squish as well as a t-shirt does.

When it comes to shoes, the fewer pairs you take, the better. Ask yourself these questions before choosing a pair of shoes for your trip:

1. Is this pair of shoes necessary?

2. Does this pair of shoes go well with most of my clothing?

3. Should I wear these on the plane to save packing space?

Any pair of shoes that ends up in your bag should be used to secure other items so you aren’t wasting the space where your foot normally goes. That’s valuable real estate in a tight market.

When it comes to electronics, separate the cords and chargers and put them into a separate drawstring bag or plastic zipper bags – squeeze out the air to save more space.

Taking extra batteries? See how to safely transport spare lithium batteries.

6. Wash as you go

You can easily wash clothes in the hotel room sink or find a laundry once a week or so to get things really clean. Use a biodegradable soap that is friendly to the environment especially since some areas require it. You can even use shampoo to clean your clothes and you know it will be easy to wash out and not ruin the color – after all, you’re using it on your hair as the perfect testing ground.

Look into taking a packable clothesline on which to hang your washed clothing or simply use the clothes hangers in the hotel closet and the shower bar!

7. Toss along the way

We’ve heard of travelers who swear by this trick. They pack and wear their oldest clothes – especially those ratty t-shirts that are great for sleeping in and take the place of having to pack pajamas – on their trips and simply toss them as they go.

Think about it: these travelers get to go shopping in a new place and fill their bags with lovely fresh items. It’s a great way to recycle your wardrobe and not draw too much attention to yourself as a ‘rich American’ at the same time.

With travel horror stories like emergency medical evacuations, stranded cruise ships, and super blizzards, travelers have become more aware of travel insurance and yet they still have a lot to learn.

Unfortunately, the impression that many travelers have is that once they buy the plan, they’re covered for anything that goes wrong on their trip.

Like any other insurance product, your travel insurance is a legal document and there are exclusions and limitations to the coverage you have to understand before you can be 100% confident you have the right coverage.

Here are 6 steps to avoid denied travel insurance claims.

1. Buy your travel insurance policy early

Your travel insurance can’t protect you from things that have already happened. If the hurricane warning has been issued, or your spouse is ill, or the traffic accident occurred, it’s too late to buy a travel insurance policy to cover your trip for those events. Also, several important coverages require the traveler to purchase the plan within a certain number of days of making their first trip deposit, so you want coverage for:

• Pre-existing medical conditions

• Hurricanes

• ‘Cancel for any reason’

• ‘Cancel for work reasons’

you’ll need to buy your travel insurance early.

2. Insure all your pre-paid trip expenses

Many travelers purchase their flights and then buy their travel insurance, estimating the cost of their remaining travel expenses. This is a great way to lock in your coverage and get access to the time-critical coverages, but you’ve got to circle back and update your coverage for all your non-refundable travel expenses once you have a total or some coverages, like trip cancellation, won’t be active. Not only that, the travel insurance plan won’t send you a check for the portion of your trip you did insure.

You’ve got to check your travel details and total up the trip costs to make sure your coverage is valid. If you estimate high, then finalize your plans during the free look period, you can make changes to your policy and be set to go.

3. Recognize what a pre-existing condition means

A pre-existing condition is defined in travel insurance plans as “any injury, illness, disease or other medical condition that occurs prior to the travel plan’s effective date and for which you had symptoms and sought diagnosis, medical treatment, and/or new prescription medications or a change in your current prescription.”

The definition doesn’t change even if you later find out you had a pre-existing condition and didn’t know it. If you recently visited the doctor for a medical issue (within the last 60-180 days) and don’t have the results from that visit yet, you might want to hold off on buying your travel insurance. At least until you’re sure the reason you visited the doctor isn’t going to result in a diagnosis that may cause you to cancel your trip. If you buy your travel insurance, then find out you have a diagnosis that means you’ll have to cancel your trip, that cancellation won’t be covered unless you bought pre-existing medical condition coverage.

4. Read and understand the covered reasons for cancelling

Unfortunately, many travelers read ‘trip cancellation’ and think that means they can cancel their trip no matter what, but it’s just not true. Travel insurance providers specifically list the reasons a traveler can and cannot cancel their trip and expect to be reimbursed for their lost non-refundable payments.

Read the travel insurance plan documents that are sent to you by email when you buy the plan to understand the reasons you can and cannot cancel your trip. If you want the right to cancel your trip for any reason at all, get ‘cancel for any reason’ as your backup coverage.

5. Get to know the exclusions

Every insurance plan has exclusions and travel insurance does too. We recently heard of a traveler who cancelled their trip because of a job loss, but their claim was denied because they hadn’t worked the required minimum time at the company (1 to 2 years is standard). Understandably, the traveler was angry but the policy was clear. The traveler just hadn’t read it thoroughly. If she’d had ‘cancel for any reason’ her trip would have been covered.

Stop and read the exclusions listed in your travel insurance plan document and think about the things that can go wrong. The exclusions are typically contained in an easily identified part of the travel insurance plan documents, so they’re not too hard to find.

6. If something happens, get all documentation you can

Often, travel insurance companies are forced to deny claims because of a lack of documentation. Many travelers expect their travel insurance company to take their word that the flight was delayed or that their passport was stolen and it’s just not reasonable.

If something happens on your trip and you believe you’ll need to make a claim, get written documentation to prove that loss. If you’re sick, go to the doctor and get a diagnosis in writing – even if it’s the flu and you know how to treat it. Otherwise, the travel insurance company won’t have proof and your claim will be denied.