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15 Reasons to Buy ‘Cancel for any reason’ for Home Exchange Travel

March 18, 2013 By Damian Tysdal

Why Buy ‘Cancel for any reason’ for Home Exchange Travel

Sure home exchangers are saving loads of money on their travel costs by swapping homes instead of paying for lodging, but one item you may want to spend a little extra on is travel insurance with ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage.

Here’s why: ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage lets you cancel your trip for any reason not listed in the standard plan coverage and get up to 100% of your total trip costs back.

This means that even though you don’t have pre-paid lodging expenses to worry about, you can still be reimbursed for your lost airfare and other pre-paid expenses.

Why not rely on standard trip cancellation benefits?

Standard trip cancellation benefits reimburse travelers for their pre-paid non-refundable trip costs if the trip is cancelled for a covered reason. This means that the reason must be listed in the travel insurance plan document to get reimbursed for your expenses.

This is an important distinction that catches many insured travelers off guard.

‘Cancel for any reason’ coverage is a catch-all benefit that lets you cancel your trip and receive between 50 and 100% of your trip costs back. No questions asked. After all, no travel insurance plan lists ‘our hosts changed their mind about exchanging homes’ as a covered reason to cancel your trip.

15 Trip cancellation reasons covered by ‘cancel for any reason’

‘Cancel for any reason’ coverage will protect you if:

  1. A terrorist attack occurs, and you’re uncomfortable about flying right now.
  2. The transportation workers strike and you can’t reach your destination.
  3. Your sister-in-law is very ill and you have to help care for her children.
  4. Your boss demands that you stay and finish the project before your trip – or else.
  5. The U.S. State Department issues a travel warning and you decide not to go.
  6. Your best friend is in a terrible car accident and you want to be at her side.
  7. A natural disaster occurs – either at your destination or at home – and you decide to stay home.
  8. Your son’s best friend commits suicide and you want to help him through his grief.
  9. You’ve been invited to interview for the job of a lifetime – during your vacation week.
  10. A flu epidemic breaks out and your babysitter cancels because she started running a fever.
  11. Your beloved pet is ill or dying.
  12. Your nanny is deported.
  13. You decide you can’t afford the trip after all.
  14. You change your mind.
  15. Your home exchange partners changes their mind.

These are all very real reasons that very real travelers have been forced to cancel their trips – and many of these reasons (depending on the travel insurance plan) are not covered by the standard trip cancellation benefit.

Important facts about ‘cancel for any reason’

It’s important to understand that ‘cancel for any reason’ (just like many insurance benefits) has a number of rules that apply and make the coverage valid.

Those rules include the following:

  • You have to purchase your insurance within a certain number of days after making the initial trip payment. In the case of home exchangers, the first payment is often the purchase of their airlines tickets.
  • You have to insure 100% of your pre-paid travel arrangements. For home exchangers, this is usually pretty easy and consists of your transportation costs and any pre-paid non-refundable tours, etc.
  • You should check the travel insurance plan’s per-person maximum limit to be sure it’s enough to recover your pre-paid and non-refundable costs.
  • If you have to cancel, it must be within the plan’s designated number of days prior to departure. For some plans, you can cancel at the last minute – others require 2 days’ notice.
  • Your reimbursement may be subject to cancellation penalties and depending upon the plan, you may not receive 100% of your expenses back (although you can get coverage for 100%, you have to choose the right plan).

See a full review of ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage and get a list of companies and plans that include this coverage.

Filed Under: Plans

Q of the week: What problems have you faced while trying to buy travel insurance?

March 16, 2013 By Damian Tysdal

What problems have you faced while trying to buy travel insurance?This week’s question of the week asks if you’ve ever had trouble while trying to buy travel insurance?

Did you find the coverage you needed?

Did you get it at a good price?

Please leave a comment to share your story below.

Filed Under: Learning

4 Steps to your Best Travel Insurance Purchase Every Time

March 11, 2013 By Damian Tysdal

your Best Travel Insurance Purchase Every Time

These days, travelers are offered travel insurance at nearly every turn in their travel planning process – from their travel agents, online booking sites, at the airport – anything to make an extra fee off the traveler.

It’s important to understand, however, that there is a best way to buy travel insurance.

In this post we’ll tell you the steps to your best travel insurance purchase every time you travel.

1. Get prepared

You know the minute you book your first flight or reserve your cruise, you’re going to be offered travel insurance. Stop right there! The travel insurance offered on booking engines and by cruise lines may not be the right coverage for you. In fact, if you’ve purchased their coverage before, did you even read it to see if you’d have the coverage you need? If your mother or your child is hospitalized, for example, and you want to be by their side, do you have coverage for that trip cancellation?

Many travelers make the mistake of taking the first insurance offered to them thinking it’s one less thing to cross of their list and they can get it done quickly.

Unfortunately, our comment forum is full of travelers who feel they got scammed when that impulse buy let them down and they lost even more money on their trips. The truth is that they took a shortcut and bought a policy they didn’t understand and that didn’t suit their needs.

Figure out what kind of coverage you need before you start booking your trip. Use the information here to select the coverage you need.

2. Buy your travel insurance early

Travelers enjoy some big benefits when they buy their travel insurance soon after their first trip booking. Why? Because some coverage in travel insurance plans requires booking within a certain number of days of that first trip booking.

One of the biggest ‘got-chas’ that travelers complain about when their claims are denied is due to pre-existing medical conditions.

Travel insurance companies need to exclude illnesses and injuries that happened before their coverage starts to keep their costs down. If you’re diagnosed with a condition or have a change in an existing condition but didn’t buy your coverage soon after your first trip payment, you won’t be covered if you have to cancel your trip. You can, however, buy pre-existing medical condition coverage as long as you buy your plan early in your trip planning process.

3. Compare quotes and coverage

When you look for airfare or hotels, you probably use a comparison engine like Expedia.com or Hotels.com to compare features and quotes and get the right flight or hotel room. It’s the same with travel insurance and it’s the smart thing to do.

Once you know what coverage you need, you can enter your trip dates and a few other details (age, country of origin, etc.) into our travel insurance comparison tool and get quotes from all the major travel insurance providers at once.

Need a specific coverage for your trip? Select that coverage to filter the list of available plans, then review each plan’s details to better understand the coverage. Once you find the right policy, click to buy it and you’ll get your plan documents delivered to your email in minutes.

See our instruction for getting quotes and comparing plans for more detail.

4. Use the free-look period

Unique to travel insurance policies, a traveler has the right to review the plan document and make changes or cancel their travel insurance coverage if it’s not right for them. You’ll even receive a refund of your premium (minus a small processing fee in some cases).

The free-look period is the 10-15 day period after you make your travel insurance purchase in which to review the plan details – that means sitting down with a cup of something and carefully reading the policy.

Don’t worry – these policies are not the huge documents you have to understand to get to know your homeowner’s insurance better (you read those, didn’t you?). Compared to those larger, more complicated insurance documents, travel insurance plans are relatively easy to read and pretty short.

Look carefully at these items:

  1. Read the exclusions – so you know what isn’t covered and you won’t be surprised that para-sailing isn’t a covered activity, for example. Call the 24/7 assistance line and ask questions if you don’t understand. These are the reasons your travel insurance claim can be denied, so it’s important to understand them.
  2. Check the coverage limits – the coverage limits are the maximum amounts that will be paid out for a claim and they may be too high or even too low:
    • If your cruise is costing you over $7,000 does the trip cancellation amount cover that and airfare and other costs?
    • If the plan limits are much higher than what you’ll need, call and modify the plan and the difference in the premium will be returned to you.
  3. Look for optional coverage for special circumstances – many plans provide extra coverage for special situations like ‘cancel for any reason’ or ‘cancel for work reasons’ and pre-existing medical conditions, extra sports equipment coverage, and hazardous sports for example.
  4. Double-check your trip details – be sure that the trip details you entered to purchase the plan are accurate, including trip dates, ages of each of the insured parties, and more. Many claims get denied simply because the original trip details were incorrect.

Take a look at our Travel Insurance 101 for more details that can help you buy the right travel insurance policy every time.

Filed Under: Learning

Q of the week: Have you ever been called home from a trip due to an emergency?

March 8, 2013 By Damian Tysdal

Q of the week: Have you ever been called home due to an emergency?This week’s question of the week asks if you’ve ever been called home from a vacation or business trip because someone is sick, something happened to your home or business while you were away, or someone was in an accident?

After that dreaded phone call, how did you handle the emergency travel arrangements?

Did you lose a great deal of money on the trip you had planned?

Please leave a comment to share your story below.

Filed Under: Learning

5 Travelers Unfairly Label Travel Insurance a ‘Scam’

March 4, 2013 By Damian Tysdal

Trave;ers unfairly label travel insurance 'a scam'As a site that allows individuals to post reviews of their travel insurance experiences and invites travel insurance providers to respond, we’ve seen our share of angry comments from insured travelers whose claims were denied. We also see angry tweets that label travel insurance companies as fraudulent, crooks, and worse.

While we do not have access to the specific details of any insured traveler’s policy – we only see the comments –  it’s clear that many travelers unfairly label travel insurance a fraud simply because the policy didn’t pay out when the insured thought it should.

Here are just a few of the most recent reasons travelers unfairly labeled travel insurance as ‘fraudulent’ and a ‘scam’ that we’ve seen in our comments and on tweets.

1. My flight was canceled and my claim was denied?

Many insured travelers are shocked to find that travel insurance doesn’t pay for cancelled flights. When you purchase your ticket with the airline and the airline cancels your flight, it’s their responsibility to compensate you, not your travel insurance provider. This is also true of trains, tour operators, and other travel suppliers as well.

If your travel supplier cancels for lack of attendance, lousy weather, or any other reason, they usually offer the traveler the option to reschedule. While this may not be convenient to the traveler, it’s the deal you made with the travel supplier when you purchased your ticket.

Avoiding this problem: know your rights with the airline, train, or other travel supplier. Read their cancellation policies and work with them to get satisfaction.

2. My elderly mother got sick but my claim was denied due to a pre-existing condition?

Many travel insurance claims are denied due to pre-existing conditions, and it’s not just your own health that’s reviewed – it’s the health of the person whose illness or death caused you to cancel or interrupt your trip too.

A pre-existing condition is any condition that a person experienced the symptoms of or had diagnosed prior to their trip. If your mother’s illness was due to a pre-existing condition, and her illness is the reason your trip was cancelled, then the travel insurance company has no responsibility to reimburse your lost trip expenses.

Avoiding this problem: if you, a traveling companion, or anyone you care about enough to cancel your trip has been to the doctor recently, consider purchasing the pre-existing condition coverage with your policy. See our full review of pre-existing condition coverage for an understanding of how it works.

3. Our baggage was delayed, but not long enough?

We all know it’s uncomfortable and problematic when we arrive but our bags do not. The airlines have guidelines that allow some monetary funds to be distributed when an emergency occurs, but it’s not required compensation and it’s defined differently from carrier to carrier. In many cases, the airline will ‘compensate’ a passenger with future travel vouchers which isn’t very useful when you need your shoes instead.

Travel insurance also places rules around their baggage coverage and requires that a bag be delayed a certain amount of time before it will reimburse the traveler according to the policy details. It may not sound fair, but it’s explained right in the policy documentation, as shown in this certificate example:

reason for baggage claim denial

4. My best friend was hospitalized and my cancellation claim was denied?

Every travel insurance plan lists the family members that are covered by the terms of the policy, but non-relatives are not covered and, in some cases, some family members are not covered (sister- and brothers-in-law are often not covered). Neither are beloved pets, favorite neighbors, bosses, baby-sitters, or anyone else.

If the person you’re canceling your trip for isn’t listed as one of the covered members in the policy, then your claim will be denied.

Avoiding this problem: if you believe there’s any chance you would have to cancel as a result of a person that is not listed in the policy, then you want to be able to cancel for any reason. Get a travel insurance policy with ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage and be sure to cancel your trip within the plan’s guidelines (typically 48 hours is required for this coverage).

5. We were parasailing and got hurt, then my medical claim was denied?

Travel insurance companies, just like every other type of insurance company, has to limit their liability. After all, you wouldn’t expect your home insurance coverage to reimburse you after you deliberately set your home on fire – that’s a claim you would expect to see denied.

Every travel insurance plan has a list of exclusions that apply to the traveler’s trip and understanding those exclusions is critical to understanding how your plan works. Here’s an example of the parasailing exclusion that’s listed in many travel insurance plans:

reason for medical claim denial

All kinds of things are typically excluded in travel insurance plans: riding motorcycles, bungee jumping, medical tourism, mental illness, and more – just like setting fire to your own home is excluded under your home insurance policy.

Avoiding this problem: read your travel insurance policy carefully and be honest with yourself about what you plan to do on your trip. If you’re headed to a resort where parasailing is an activity and you think you may want to try it, then get a plan what covers it. Many travel insurance plans allow you to add coverage for ‘adventure’ activities as an option and some don’t even charge you extra if you buy your plan early.

Steps to Help Ensure Your Travel Insurance Claim is Paid

The following are the recommended steps to ensure your travel insurance claim gets paid:

  1. Read your policy – especially noting the exclusions – as soon after you buy it as possible (during the review period), so you know what’s covered and (perhaps more important) what is not covered. You can avoid a lot of heartbreak with this one step.
  2. When a claim-worthy event occurs, keep all your receipts and get any causes of delay in writing. Lots of claims are denied simply because the traveler couldn’t prove the cause or even that they had a ticket for that flight.
  3. Call your travel insurance company before you file a claim and ask what’s needed to make the claim successful.
  4. Be reasonable about the delay – claims typically take between two and four weeks to process, but many take longer because they require research before the insurance adjuster can make a decision. A large natural disaster will trigger a flood of claims, and if yours is in the pile it may take awhile.

See Making a Successful Travel Insurance Claim for more details.

The Bottom Line

Many travelers seem to think that if they pay a little and buy some travel insurance plan, they’re covered for anything that happens – anything at all – and that’s really unreasonable. Travel insurance doesn’t cover ‘everything’ that can go wrong on a trip.

Your travel insurance policy is an agreement – a legal contract between you and the travel insurance provider, just like any other type of insurance. When insured travelers are frustrated because a claim is denied, they assume they’ve been cheated but in most cases their claim is denied fairly according to the policy.

We agree that it’s no fun when you buy a travel insurance plan and believe you’re covered only to find out you were never covered at all. This scenario is 100% avoidable if travelers will read their plans and understand the exclusions.

For more information and help understanding the ‘loopholes’ that confuse travelers see our article: 5 “Loopholes” and How to Avoid Them and please, read the fine print of your travel insurance document within the policy’s review period (typically 10-14 days after purchase) so you know you have a plan that will deliver the coverage you expect.

Filed Under: Learning

5 Things Every Traveler Should Know About Baggage

February 25, 2013 By Damian Tysdal

Baggage Rules Every Traveler Should KnowIn both the U.S. and abroad, transportation providers of all kinds have rules governing bags that are checked in and carried on.

Here are 5 things every traveler should know about taking baggage on a trip.

1. Know the baggage rules for your carrier

Heightened security measures since 9/11, the attempted shoe-bombing, and other threats, have made the rules for what can go into your baggage and what be put on an airplane very strict. Add to that the airline charges for checked and sometimes for carry-on baggage, and you’ve got some of the highest points of frustration for travelers.

Knowing the baggage rules should be simpler than it is, but it’s not. First, there are the TSA baggage rules which are complicated and exhaustive, and then there are the airline-specific rules, which vary from airline to airline and cover:

  • The number of items you can carry on (2 is usually the maximum)
  • Each bag’s size and weight

And finally, there are the exceptions to what can be carried on: breast milk, baby formula, and medicine in amounts that exceed the liquid limits, for a few examples. If you’re carrying anything even a little out of the ordinary, check the websites of the airline and the TSA to learn how to get that item onto and safely off the airplane.

Of course, the airlines aren’t the only ones with baggage restrictions. Amtrak baggage rules, for example, have restrictions similar to those of the airline: limiting the number and sizes of your carry-on and checked bags as well as restrictions on what can go into your bags – no firearms, ice picks, and hazardous chemicals are a few). Be sure to check the websites of the non-airline transportation providers for their rules too.

2. Know what the airlines owe you

The treatment of checked baggage is a constant source of traveler complaints and for good reason. While the airlines claim that the rate of lost luggage is always improving, it makes no difference to the person standing alone at the empty baggage carousel.

If an airline loses a traveler’s bag and belongings, that person can file a claim. The Department of Transportation (DOT) requires the airline to compensate the traveler for the value of the bag and its contents up to a maximum of $3,300, but here’s where things get tricky:

  • The airlines have maximum limits for single items, so if you have a lot of old clothes but $5,000 worth of camera equipment, you’re not going to be happy with the payout.
  • The airline will require proof of the value of everything in the bag and that means receipts for everything, including the bag.
  • Then they’ll apply depreciation scale to everything you claim was in the bag.

It’s for this reason, we recommend you photograph the contents of your luggage before a trip – it can provide a little support to your claim. We also recommend you follow these rules to protect yourself from losses:

  1. Never pack anything that can’t be replaced in your checked baggage
  2. Never pack anything that you can’t live without in your checked baggage

It’s hard to say when a bag is well and fully ‘lost’ and not just gone on a different trip than the one you have, so delayed baggage is also a problem. Bags lost for 21 days after landing abroad qualify as lost. The DOT requires the airlines to pay something to the traveler whose bags are delayed, but the airlines are largely left to make their own rules and publish them online.

3. Know what your travel insurance will cover

Most travel insurance plans – even those identified as travel medical plans – offer some level of baggage coverage, which can be more useful on a trip than you might think. For one thing – your baggage coverage is in effect whenever your bag is lost, destroyed or stolen so it’s not isolated to the plane trip.

Of course, baggage coverage with your travel insurance plan also comes with some pretty hefty restrictions, including per-item, per-person, and other limits.

Baggage coverage for truly lost bags is nearly always bundled with coverage for bags that are currently missing so if you’ve got one, you likely have both types of coverage.

  1. See our review of baggage coverage for the full details, including what’s covered and what’s not.
  2. See our review of baggage delay coverage for the full details on that type of coverage. Again, we include what is and isn’t covered

4. Purchase additional coverage for high-value items

While we always recommend keeping your high-value items on your person or in your carry-on it’s not always an option for every traveler, so we tracked down how you can best protect those items from loss, damage, or theft.

Some, but not all, airlines allow you to purchase additional coverage if the possessions you are checking are valued in excess of the airline’s standard compensation.

Some items – cameras, jewelry, electronics for instance – can be more fully covered by adding them to your homeowner’s insurance policy. Often this means a special rider and an additional premium, but the item will be fully covered and you won’t experience the per-item limits you see with airline coverage and baggage coverage with your travel insurance plan.

5. As a last resort … or perhaps the first

If you have to send something very expensive or very important from here to there, consider packaging it and mailing it with appropriate insurance cover to it’s destination. Often, circumventing the transportation rules is the best way to get out of this mess entirely.

Filed Under: Learning

Top Ways Bad Weather Can Ruin Travel Plans

February 18, 2013 By Damian Tysdal

5 Ways Bad Weather Can Ruin your Travel PlansAs winter storm warnings were issued a week or so ago, we’re reminded of all the ways that bad weather can ruin our travel plans. Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and other ugly weather scenarios sometimes can’t be avoided no matter how carefully you plan.

Still, there are some ways you can minimize how – and how much – the weather impacts your travel plans.

Here are the top 5 ways bad weather can threaten to derail your travel plans (and how travel insurance can help – or not):

1. Flights are cancelled as a winter storm approaches

When a big storm approaches and there’s plenty of warning, the airlines sometimes allow ticketed passengers to make changes to their reservations and waive the customary change fees. That’s great, but if you have other pre-paid non-refundable trip costs, like non-refundable hotel rooms for example, then you will want to be reimbursed for that loss. This is why it’s important to insure all pre-paid non-refundable trip costs with your travel insurance plan.

When your flight is delayed and severe weather is listed as a covered reason in your travel insurance plan, the travel delay coverage can help you get a hotel for the night, some meals, and other incidentals (up to a per-day limit).

2. Ferries are halted and/or roads are closed

This happened to many vacationers when Hurricane Irene hit the beaches along the east coast. The roads were closed, the bridges were closed, and the ferries were operating only for emergency crew, so vacationers were prevented from getting to their pre-paid vacation rentals on the islands.

Even travelers with hurricane coverage in their travel insurance plans will have a difficult time with their claims if they’ve already left for their trip. After all, trip cancellation coverage ends when you leave for your trip. After that, trip interruption coverage for those who could prove there were no alternative routes to get to their destination was the coverage used to claim their lost trip costs.

3. Rising floodwaters threaten your vacation rental

Seasonal floods and particularly intense storms cause major problems for homes in some areas and if you’ve invested in a vacation rental where floodwaters are rising, you could be in for some frustration.

Trip cancellation coverage requires that the place you’re renting be uninhabitable, which means it has no electricity, no running water, no roof – that kind of thing. Many vacation rental owners have cancellation or rescheduling policies that cover this, but lots expect that you’ll just endure the mess and come anyway. It’s an important distinction and something to inquire about when you make your reservations.

Only ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage will allow you to cancel your trip when your vacation rental is a mess, but inhabitable, and you don’t want to stay there.

4. Mandatory evacuations are ordered soon after you arrive

Many travel insurance plans will cover your pre-paid non-refundable trip costs when mandatory evacuations are ordered and you have to leave, but as we’ve noted before it has to be listed as a covered reason in the plan’s description of coverage.

Mandatory evacuations may sometimes be ordered for hurricanes but not often for other weather-related disasters like blizzards. When disaster management teams knock on the door of your vacation home and give you orders to leave, the right travel insurance – one that specifically covers mandatory evacuations – will reimburse your lost trip expenses under the trip interruption coverage if you’re already on your trip or under trip cancellation coverage if you haven’t left yet.

5. You can’t do anything you planned and you want to go home

When your vacation is completely ruined by the weather and you can’t see your way through to enjoy another game of scrabble while it pours outside, you may want to abandon everything and head home.

Unfortunately, this is one of those areas where even travel insurance can’t help you. Travel insurance doesn’t consider changing your mind a covered reason for cancelling or abandoning your trip, so you can’t expect reimbursement for your lost trip costs. The only way you have to avoid this is by having ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage and cancelling your trip prior to the deadline (usually 0-2 days prior to departure).

How to Keep Bad Weather from Ruining your Travel Plans

In some parts of the world, the weather is more unpredictable than in others, but there are some things you can do to keep the weather from ruining your travel plans:

  • Research the local weather before you go to know what to expect. This might seem like a silly tip, but you’d be surprised how many people show up without the right clothing for the forecasted weather.
  • Plan your weather-dependent activities with lots of flexibility. This may take some research, but if you’re trying to see bears in Alaska for example, you’ll want to be able to shuffle those plans around if bad weather strikes.
  • Try an attitude adjustment. So, it’s pouring rain and you’re hopping Disney parks looking for the best rides … buy a plastic poncho and hat and try going with it. With luck, the crowds will clear and the lines to the best rides will be really fast.

We read this tip about the best day to visit theme parks is right after a hurricane. Most locals are busy cleaning up and those traveling in cancelled their trips, so you’ll have the park to yourself!

Filed Under: Learning

7 Steps to Tell Someone You’re Traveling Somewhere Dangerous

February 11, 2013 By Damian Tysdal

7 Steps to break the news you're traveling somewhere dangerous“Don’t tell Mom” or “Don’t tell Dad” is the default reactionary response any time many of us are about to do something stupid or life threatening. You tell this to your siblings, your friends, and even your more lenient aunts and uncles. It also happens to be something that travelers say after they finish booking their trip to a riskier region of the world and brag to their friends.

Walking that uncomfortable line between wanting to share your travel plans with your loved ones, and heaving them into a puddle of perpetual worry, or leaving them in the dark, and having to keep track of your lies, can get exhausting.

You can choose either path, of course, but telling those who love you where you’re going before you get on a plane to travel to a potentially dangerous location can also be a gift.

Starting with a little research goes a long way to allaying their fears. The fact that you know the risks, often helps them realize you’ve put some thought into this travel plan and it’s not just on a whim. See our 5 Tips for Traveling to Dangerous Countries for some preparation hints that you can use when they ask.

7 Steps to Breaking the News

Let’s start with the steps that are necessary to break the news gently while respecting their fear for your safety.

  1. Pick an appropriate time, i.e., when they’re not distracted by other things or too busy – a bribe of delicious food or drink works well here. Have them sit down (somewhere devoid of sharp objects is always a good place).
  2. Consider adding a little perspective – tell them you are traveling somewhere even more dangerous, let that sink in, then tell them where you’re really going (this step gets mixed reviews).
  3. Let them vent – this is an important part of the process, so be prepared for it. They want to express their concern and expressing irritation here is not worth your effort – wait it out.
  4. Buy travel insurance ahead of time and give them a copy of the plan document. This shows you’re responsible and thinking ahead about potential problems; plus, if they’re the beneficiary of your accident coverage or the one who will travel to your bedside should you be hospitalized, they’ll need it anyway.
  5. Listen to their advice – heck, it could be good! If they offer to buy a powerful alarm or pepper spray to stick in your pocket, take it and learn to use it. After all, they care about you and they’ve been keeping an eye on you for years now, so they might know a thing or two about your habits and how to keep you safe.
  6. Compromise –  if they make crazy demands of you: checking in daily, wearing a bullet-proof vest, hiring a security detail – compromise. You’ll be happy to text often, wear a money belt, and go only where it’s safe, for example.

If you get a lot of grief, it’s good to have one card in your back pocket – if you can get it. Talk to other relatives. You know, the ones who are older than those giving you resistance – and dig up the stupid things they did when they were younger. You may have to dig around in the family tree or ask long-time friends for details, but if you work at it you may find your loved ones did some crazy things of their own.

Even if you never share that knowledge with them, it will help you endure their resistance with understanding. Throwing that knowledge on the table could turn things ugly. Use your gift wisely.

What You Must Not Do on this Dangerous Trip

When you’re traveling somewhere that your loved ones consider dangerous, you must not do the following or you’ll just make it worse the next time:

  1. Do not go incommunicado – you’re not an international spy and you can’t go without communicating or you’ll give them a heart attack. Check in once in awhile. If you have an agreed-upon schedule, great – stick to that. Otherwise, try for every couple of days or so and certainly check in the minute something scary happens and it’s broadcast on their local media. (See 3 Ways Travelers can Avoid the Slam of the Smartphone to save money on checking in.)
  2. Do not leave their gifts of safety devices in your apartment. Especially if they have a key and are coming to water the plants and feed the cat. They’ll look for them, you know they will. If they bought you a fancy alarm or bear spray or one of those snazzy urban warfare protection jackets, take it with you (or hide it at a friend’s if you really can’t fit it in your luggage).
  3. Do not leave your travel medical kit behind. A travel medical kit customized for where you’re traveling can do a world of good when something happens. Having it means you’re better prepared to take care of yourself. See What’s in your Travel Medical Kit for a list of things to put in it.
  4. Do not call in a panic if something happens. You’re big enough to get yourself into this mess and you’re big enough to get yourself out of it. Run into a demonstration-turned-violent-mob? Get the heck out of there and don’t look back. Cut your foot and land in the hospital getting stitches? Hope it heals before you get home (and, you have your travel medical to cover the hospital costs, so no big deal). Read the 7 Deadly Travel Sins and avoid committing them.

Minimize any dangerous encounters you did have while on this trip or it will be harder for them to let you go next time – plus, no one likes to hear ‘I told you so.’ Be sure to send photos and stories of all the great things that happened on your trip! This will help them get used to it before you pick your next destination.

Filed Under: Learning

What Travel Insurance Coverage Do You Need for a Ski or Snowboard Vacation?

February 4, 2013 By Damian Tysdal

Travel Insurance for Ski & Snowboard VacationsAlthough many parts of this country have lacked the necessary snowfall for a really great ski or snowboard trip, some have received plenty of snowfall. Of course, there are always other options for excellent skiing as well, including our neighbor to the north.

So, if you, your significant other, your buddies, or your family are planning a ski or snowboard trip this spring, what do you need in the way of travel insurance to be protected?

Let’s go over what coverage you may want with your travel insurance plan and the reasons. Hint: we’ll also tell you where you can save money by avoiding coverage you don’t need.

If you have to cancel the trip, trip cancellation coverage can save you lots

When you’ve arranged for the airline tickets, lodging, ski passes, rental equipment, transportation and more, stop and add up the total of your pre-paid non-refundable costs. They can be quite significant.

Now, stop and think about whether you can toss that money away if you suddenly, and unexpectedly, have to cancel the trip. If you’re thinking, “I’ll never have to cancel the trip!”, consider the following scenarios:

  • Someone not on the trip but very dear to you is in a serious traffic accident and you want to be with them instead.
  • Something happens at work and you have to cancel your trip to attend to things – this can happen even if you’re not management.
  • Someone who planned to go on the trip is suddenly very, very ill and cannot travel.

Even worse, what happens if while you’re enjoying your trip you’re called home to handle an emergency. Someone is ill or someone is hurt, but you have to get home quickly. Will you lose the remainder of your trip investment?

When we book a vacation, we try to save as much as we can, which means that our airline tickets are often non-refundable, our hotel rooms or other lodging is often non-refundable, and our ski pass purchases are often non-refundable. Sure at least some of these travel suppliers will give you a voucher for future travel, but what about those that won’t – can you afford to lose that money?

If not, take your total pre-paid costs and plug them and the details about your trip into our travel insurance comparison tool and get some quick and easy quotes from many travel insurance providers. You might be surprised to find that you can cover your travel investment for very little extra payout.

After that – and before you choose a travel insurance plan for your snowboard or ski trip – see the remaining points we’ve outlined here.

Even for a domestic trip, you may want travel medical

If you’re traveling abroad, it’s likely you’ll be traveling outside your health insurance network range. What does that mean? In many countries, it means you’ll be paying up-front for your medical care if you hit your head, break a leg, or need stitches while on your ski or snowboard trip. In some countries, they require you to show proof of travel insurance at the border before they’ll let you in!

If you’re traveling inside your home country for your snowy vacation, you may still want to check the travel medical options. After all, if you’re headed outside your health insurance network you’ll be paying the much higher out-of-network costs for your medical care and if you’ve tapped your savings to afford the trip you may not want to put it on your credit card – especially if a bunch of you are in a traffic accident, for example.

Important note: It’s typical for travel medical to automatically be your secondary coverage when other coverage is in effect, but don’t worry. That simply means your own health insurance will pay first and travel medical will pick up the rest – including deductibles from the first go-round.

See our review of travel medical coverage for full information and a list of plans and their coverage limits.

Evacuation doesn’t apply in your home country

It’s important to understand that with nearly all travel insurance plans the emergency evacuations – medical and non-medical – do not apply when you’re traveling inside your own country.

Unfortunately, in most cases you also cannot separate travel medical from the medical evacuation coverage, so save where you can by getting only the travel medical you think you’ll need and the lowest amount of evacuation coverage.

If you’re headed overseas to enjoy the snow, you’ll want evacuation coverage in case you are badly injured, and repatriation if the worst happens. A medical evacuation can cost anywhere from $50,000 to upwards of $150,000 depending on your location and injuries. This benefit pays for medically necessary evacuations to a medical facility where your injuries can be adequately treated – plus it will take you home when you can safely travel, so you don’t have to worry about re-arranging your return flight.

See a full review of medical evacuation and repatriation coverage for more details.

See also, our recent article: How Much Travel Medical and Evacuation is Enough? for more information.

Travel delays can cause losses too

Travel delays can come in many forms – especially in the cold months of winter. Roads get closed, flights are cancelled, and all that can really eat into your vacation.

Travel delay coverage can reimburse you for unexpected costs like hotels when the flight is cancelled if your trip is delayed for a covered reason. Many travel insurance plans do provide coverage for flight cancellations due to weather, and since the airlines aren’t required to help you out when they can’t fly due to the weather, it’s a good idea to have travel insurance as your backup.

See our full review of travel delay coverage for more details and a list of companies with the best coverage.

Coverage for your ski and snowboard gear

The coverage for checked luggage is often confusing to travelers, so we’ll break it down into smaller bits. Many people prefer to avoid the fees imposed on checked luggage by the airlines, but ski and snowboard equipment is simply too big to fit anywhere else, so you have to check it. Most travelers are aware that the airline coverage for lost, damaged, or destroyed checked luggage is limited and there are strong limits on their liability if the contents are expensive.

Travel insurance also places a per-item maximum on items. Specifically, a few travel insurance providers allow up to $2,500 for sports equipment, but most give an insured traveler only $300-$500. If you want extra coverage for your gear, you’ll want to look into a sports equipment rider (it will increase your premium a little).

See our full review of sports equipment coverage to know what to buy and get a list of companies that offer it.

Last, but not least, check to be sure skiing/snowboarding is covered

The last step before you finalize your plan choice is to be sure that skiing and snowboarding are covered activities in the plan details. Travel insurance works differently than some types of insurance; specifically, the activity must be included as a covered activity for the insurance to be effective.

If skiing or snowboarding are not covered activities, they’ll be listed in the exclusions in the plan documents.

Don’t worry, if you buy your travel insurance and review the plan within the review period (usually between 10 and 15 days after purchase), you have time to make changes or cancel the plan for a refund. See our tips for 100% confidence in your travel insurance plan.

Filed Under: Trip Types

3 Steps to Insure your Vacation Rental

January 28, 2013 By Damian Tysdal

3 Steps to Insure your Vacation RentalThese days, most people agree that the ‘staycation’ lasts only a year at most and then couples and families typically get back to real vacations pretty quickly.

The old days of being limited to staying in a hotel, however, are long over and many travelers – even solo travelers – have turned to vacation rental properties as a good alternative to hotels.

Vacation rental properties come in the form of single rooms, condominiums, apartments, even entire houses, yachts, tree houses, airstreams, and castles and they come in all sizes and are available nearly everywhere.

Some great sites for finding vacation properties include: Vacation Rentals by Owner, HomeAway, Airbnb, and more.

In addition to the ability to live like a local, some of the most important reasons travelers like vacation rentals instead of the hotel are:

  • More room and more privacy – travelers can come and go or stay as they please without disturbing room service and without having to check in and out like with a bed and breakfast
  • Stay comfortably together as a group – an excellent option for extended family or large groups of friends
  • Cost savings – paying for several rooms to house a family with children can be cost-prohibitive whereas a rental condo, apartment, or house allows everyone more room, access to a kitchen to save money on meals, and the ability for families and groups to stay together

If you’re looking at booking a vacation rental for a Spring Break getaway or thinking ahead to your summer vacation, it’s a good idea to consider your travel insurance options at the same time.

What are the concerns/risks with a vacation rental?

As with any insurance plan, you purchase it to protect yourself from the unknown – those things that can happen, but hopefully don’t happen. This is why we buy car insurance, to protect ourselves in the event of an accident, even one with another motorist who doesn’t have insurance.

It’s also why we buy travel insurance, to protect us from losses that we cannot predict:

  • A hurricane is pending and you’d like not to be there when it happens.
  • Your kid becomes very ill and you have to head to the mainland hospital and abandon your vacation.
  • Some projects at work are not gelling and you have to cancel your trip to handle them – and keep your job.
  • Your own home is vandalized and you have to cancel your trip to handle the problem, file insurance papers, assess the damage, etc.
  • A family member dies.
  • You’re the victim of an assault and you need to stay home and recover.
  • The airline suddenly filed for bankruptcy and cancelled all flights.

Life is unpredictable, and life while traveling is just unpredictable in another location, so it stands to reason that smart travelers protect themselves from expensive losses when they spend a lot of money on a vacation rental.

Avoid the Travel Insurance Offered with your Rental

Many experienced vacation rental property managers offer their guests standard travel insurance with their rental agreement and they’ll include language like this in the contract agreement:

Cancellations that are received in writing between 30 and 60 days prior to arrival date qualify for a 50% refund. There are no refunds for reservations cancelled within 30 days of your arrival date. Travel insurance for unexpected cancellations is recommended to all our guests.

This is a great way to protect themselves, but their travel insurance plan may not protect you as well as it protects them.

Let’s look at some examples – what if:

  • Someone gets very sick before the trip and you have to cancel? With the right travel insurance plan, you’ll have coverage for up to 100% of your trip investment if you have to cancel for an illness or injury.
  • You’re in a traffic accident on the way to your vacation? Sounds awful, but it could happen and if you cancel your trip by default (you’re in the hospital), you can bet that standard travel insurance plan isn’t likely to send you a check for your loss.
  • Someone on your trip or back home has a pre-existing medical condition? If you have to abandon your trip to be at your father’s side in the hospital and he’s in there because of a pre-existing medical condition, is that standard travel insurance policy going to refund the remainder of your trip investment? Likely not.

Even more concerning – does their standard travel insurance plan cover:

  • emergency medical care?
  • trip interruptions?
  • medical evacuations?

If your vacation rental requires a ferry ride to get to the front door, you’re going to want to be sure you can reach medical care if you need it. Sometimes an evacuation is the only way to go about that.

You can spend the time studying their policy and comparing it with other travel insurance plans, or you can plug your trip details into our travel insurance comparison tool and select the options you need while price-shopping among many plans from many companies.

3 Steps to Insuring Your Vacation Rental

Use the following steps to prepare to cover your vacation in a vacation rental property:

  1. Gather your planned trip details, including:
    • The number of people and their ages
    • Your vacation dates – starting the day you leave until the day you return
    • The date you made the first trip payment (see why this is important)
  2. Total up your non-refundable trip costs, including:
    • Pre-paid, non-refundable airfare
    • You pre-paid, non-refundable lodging costs (remember, even many hotels now have refund restrictions for rooms booked online)
    • Any pre-paid, non-refundable tours, boat reservations, ferry tickets, and more
    • See What determines my total trip cost? for more details
  3. Think about where you may need special coverage, like for:
    • Hazardous sports – for those in your group who may hang-glide, para-sail, rock-climb, etc.
    • ‘Cancel for any reason’ – for situations where you want the ability to cancel for any reason. If you’re not sure see Is ‘Cancel for any reason’ worth it?
    • Pre-existing medical – for those traveling with you and for those staying behind who may cause you to have to cancel or abandon your trip. See the explanation of pre-existing medical condition coverage for details.

After you’ve chosen your plan, you have a certain number of days (usually 10-15) to review the plan and make changes or cancel it. See Understanding your Free Look Period/Refund Policy for details.

Finally, to be 100% confident you have the right plan, see this topic.

Remember: Even Travel Insurance Doesn’t cover ‘Everything’

It’s important to note that travel insurance, just like every other type of insurance, doesn’t cover ‘everything’. The following are just a few things that will not be covered with your vacation travel insurance:

  1. Losses due to hurricanes and/or mandatory evacuations (unless your plan specifically covers these events).
  2. Loses due to changing your mind or deciding you can’t go (but ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage can help here).
  3. Losses due to lousy weather conditions (although you can purchase ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage and cancel before your trip starts if you decide you’d rather skip it because of the weather).

For more information about what travel insurance does not cover, see this topic too:

8 Things Travel Insurance Will Never Cover – Ever

In addition, and especially with a vacation rental, your travel insurance won’t cover damage to the rental property itself. Unfortunately, the vacation property owner’s insurance may or may not cover the damage either, and you can be sure that their rental agreement spells out the terms for things like carpet burns, broken furniture, etc. If something gets damaged, you’ll likely have to pay for that yourself.

Filed Under: Learning

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About this website

My name is Damian, and I started this website in 2006 to help travelers understand travel insurance.

The site features company reviews, guides, articles, and many blog posts to help you better understand travel insurance and pick the right plan for your trip (assuming you actually need travel insurance).

I am also a licensed travel insurance agent, and you can get a quote and purchase through this site as well.

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