As the summer travel season approaches and travelers make their vacation plans, it’s time to think about hurricanes. Last year, many travelers found themselves stuck or had to shell out additional cash because they made mistakes with their travel insurance purchases.

In some cases, travelers didn’t have any travel insurance. Others simply didn’t understand their policy coverage.

These are the most common mistakes travelers make when buying hurricane travel insurance.

1. Buying trip insurance after the hurricane is named

Travel insurance, just like any other insurance, cannot cover ‘known events’. That’s like buying home insurance after the house is on fire!

Once a hurricane is named, it’s a known event. Therefore travelers must purchase their travel insurance before the hurricane is named. Ideally, soon after making your first trip payment.

2. Hurricane warnings are not a covered reason to cancel

A hurricane warning is just that – a warning that a hurricane may hit a particular destination with a particular force. Cancelling your trip for concerns over a possible hurricane is not covered by travel insurance (with one exception).

Recently, MH Ross updated two of their plans (Bridge and Complete) to allow trip cancellation refunds when a hurricane warning is issued.

3. Assuming hurricanes are covered

Many travelers assume that hurricane coverage is included with their travel insurance plan, but in many cases, it’s not. While it makes sense that you would want to cancel your trip if a hurricane is imminent, that’s just not enough for travel insurance plans.

Your travel insurance plan has to specifically list hurricanes (or severe weather) as a covered reason for trip cancellation and post-departure trip interruption (in case a hurricane veers toward your destination) if you are to have coverage.

4. Buying hurricane insurance from a cruise line or travel agent

It seems like an easy win to buy your insurance while you’re making your reservations, and a lot of travelers make this mistake. These plans are not 100% travel insurance and they have left a lot of travelers stranded without the coverage they need.

Hint: if you get stuck with one of these plans, you can cancel it if you do it quickly.

Your travel plan should be purchased using a travel insurance comparison site because you’ll have the best options for comparing plans that fit your trip details and your needs – not some generic plan designed for anyone (and no one in particular).

5. Failing to recognize hurricane disruption is widespread

If you miss a connection that means your cruise departs without you because a hurricane disrupted flights, you could be out of luck without travel insurance.

Even if your travel plans don’t take you in the direct path of the hurricane, they could be disrupted. Having travel insurance is important even for those who are not traveling in the hurricane’s path.

6. Ignoring the plan’s exclusions

Every insurance plan has exclusions. For example, standard trip cancellation for hurricanes says that your lodgings must be destroyed and uninhabitable to qualify for the cancellation reimbursement.

That means you can’t cancel for a refund just because the pool is filled with garbage and the beach is covered with junk, but your hotel is still standing and operable.

Your travel insurance plan details will make this clear, but you’ve got to read it. Understanding the exclusions is a critical mistake many travelers make.

The Solution?

Travel insurance is unique in that it comes with a free review period, which you can use to read the plan, think about your travel needs, and make changes or cancel the plan if it won’t work for you. Be sure to take this time to read your plan and avoid these common mistakes.

For a complete picture of hurricane season travel, see our 2012 Traveler’s Guide to Hurricane Season.

According to the CDC, 20% of all travelers get sick on their trips and about 5% of those require emergency medical care when traveling abroad. According to the WHO, tourists are 10 times more likely to die as a result of an injury – and 23% of tourist deaths are caused by injuries.

Even travel to relatively tame parts of the world can result in horrendous medical care costs if you catch a virus or get hurt.

See this pre-travel health checklist to be better prepared on your next trip.

1. Research your destination

Before you travel, you can get country-specific information, such as security alerts, current threats to safety, and more, by selecting your destination here: https://travel.state.gov/travel/travel_1744.html.

You can also learn about current weather and health risks for your destination here:

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Travel Notices
• World Health Organization Disease Outbreak News

In researching your destination, it’s critical to discover whether vaccinations are recommended and whether you need to carry anti-malarial medication, for example.

2. Check your health insurance plan

You cannot assume your health insurance will go along with you when you travel, so it’s critical to find out before you leave.

While a few health plans provide some coverage abroad, it’s more likely that you’ll have to pre-pay for your medical care. Many travel insurance plans, like Medicare, do not cover travelers outside the U.S. borders.

Call your health insurance provider and ask specifically whether you will have coverage in the country you plan to visit. If not, see #9.

3. Know your options for medical care

Finding reliable and qualified medical care while traveling, particularly if you don’t know the local language, can be a risky venture. Most travel experts recommend having travel medical insurance and becoming a member of IAMAT.

With travel insurance, you’ll have help locating local medical providers and arranging for emergency transportation.

IAMAT members have online access to qualified, affiliated doctors and clinics in over 90 countries – and participants are fluent in English.

4. Know how the government can assist

If you become seriously ill or are injured abroad, the local consular officer can help by informing family and friends of your condition, but it’s not the government’s responsibility to get you home.

If an overseas crisis occurs, and you have enrolled in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), then the U.S. State Department will send you updated security information.

If the State Department recommends evacuation and no commercial transportation is available, they may arrange for citizens to be transported out of the crisis zone. Those costs are paid for by the travelers.

5. Check your evacuation options

Just as many health insurance plans do not provide coverage overseas, neither do they pay for medical evacuations back to the U.S. Read how one couple was refused medical treatment in the Bahamas and had to get donations to get home.

A medical evacuation can cost tens of thousands of dollars depending on your location and your medical condition.

It’s not likely that you’ll have evacuation coverage with your credit card travel protection either, so your safest bet is to have evacuation coverage with your travel insurance plan.

6. See a doctor before you travel

Before you travel overseas, it’s a good idea to see a doctor 4 to 6 weeks before your trip to update your vaccinations, check your health, and to protect yourself if you have a pre-existing medical condition.

Your doctor will also be able to tell you which medications to take along to fight illnesses you may encounter on your trip.

7. Check your health status

The rapid spread of the 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) was significantly aided by infected travelers – those who were symptomatic and those who were experiencing the incubation stage.

Aided by travelers, this new virus found its way into dozens of countries in less than 2 months after it was identified.

No one wants to cancel a trip, but there are times when it’s recommended.

8. Sort out your medications

Make sure you have enough medication to last through your trip and pack these in your carry-on luggage. Keep medicines in their original containers as it will cause less trouble when going through customs.

9. Purchase travel insurance

Now that you know the risks and your coverage, you are in a better position to select a plan based on your needs and purchase the right travel insurance to cover your trip.

There are a number of financial risks that people face every single day, but when coupled with the challenges of travel – strange foods, different environments, severe exhaustion, language barriers – the negative impact of these crimes is amplified.

1. Pickpockets and Petty Thieves

You’re riding along on a scooter, weaving easily through traffic when a kid on a motorbike snatches your backpack and zooms away.

Pickpockets and thieves are common challenges when traveling and tourists are easy targets because they are unfamiliar with the region and often distracted.

2. ATM Skimming

You’re at an ATM trying to withdraw cash, but the machine refuses to dispense any money. You remember getting money from a street ATM just a few days ago.

Skimming devices are notoriously difficult to spot and many are specially crafted to each ATM model. When you slip your card into the slot and type your PIN, you’ve just handed thieves everything they need to access your account.

3. Lost Items

You arrive early and your rooms aren’t yet ready, so you leave your bags with the bell captain who hands you a claim check. You return to discover your bags are gone.

Hotels can avoid legal responsibility for thefts on their property, especially because guests are usually unable to show proof they were carrying anything of value. That claim check the bell captain issued? Turn it over and read the fine print – it absolves the hotel of all responsibility.

4. Double Charged

You hand your credit card over to pay the check and the waiter brings you a receipt to sign. Little do you know that you’ve been double-charged and the waiter will forge your signature onto a second receipt after you’ve gone.

Suspicious credit card charges may be caught by your financial institution – especially if they are aware of your trip – but they may have difficulty reaching you to raise the issue.

5. Bribes

You’re pulled over by a police officer in a poor country. He quickly makes it clear that a bribe will make him go away.

In some regions of the world, simply being a tourist behind the wheel of a car means you are an open target for crime – especially if you don’t know the language, local laws, or customs.

6. Stolen Cash

You discover that the safe in your hotel suite isn’t working, so you hide your ‘extra’ cash in the room. When you return, the cash is missing.

Electronic key cards make it harder for unauthorized people to enter hotel rooms, but it’s done little to protect travelers from inside jobs. Anything left behind is fair game and hotels are not liable for what happens to your belongings – even those locked inside the safe in your room.

7. Car Problems

You drive into a small town and a bystander points out that your car is leaking oil when in fact, they tossed the oil onto the ground near your car. They tell you about a garage right around the corner that will fix the problem.

The bystander may, in fact, have been hired by the garage owner to drum up this sort of business.

8. Money Switches

You hand the taxi driver cash but he switches the note with a similar-looking one of a much smaller amount, then accuses you of trying to cheat him. Or, you hand U.S. dollars to a clerk and they give you the change in the wrong amount of local money.

No one handles foreign money with as much confidence as their home country’s currency, so this is a prime scenario for losing your cash.

9. Fake Art

Some very nice young people persuade you to visit their school’s gallery where a number of promising artists are showing their work ahead of an art show – and you can buy early.

High-pressure sales pitches could mean you end up buying something fake, overpriced, or even stolen (which could get you into a whole other vat of trouble).

Having kids is an unpredictable adventure – full of surprises, turns and twists. Whether you take your kids with you or leave them behind, there are a number of ways your kids can ruin your next trip.

1. While riding a rollercoaster, her asthma inhaler goes flying

As your daughter gleefully rides the roller coaster, the inhaler in her pocket flies loose, never to be seen again – how will you replace it before she has an attack?

With the right travel insurance (you’ll need a waiver for pre-existing medical conditions), you’ll have 24-hour travel assistance to get her prescription filled.

2. Your son’s semester is extended due to snow days

Your son’s senior year of high school has been marked by snow storm after heavy snow storm, causing the administration to extend the school year into summer. Can you cancel his summer trip without losing all your pre-paid trip costs?

Some travel insurance plans cover trip cancellations for school extensions so you can get 50-100% of your trip costs back.

3. A wandering iguana bites your kid on the arm

When your kid is bitten by a wandering animal, you’ll want to know that bite is properly treated by a medical professional. If you are traveling outside your health insurance network, can you afford to pay the medical bill?

Travel insurance with medical coverage is essential for overseas trips, but it’s also very useful for domestic trips where you are traveling outside your health insurance network. A travel insurance plan with adequate medical coverage means that physician’s expenses, drugs, stitches, and more are covered.

4. That virus going around school finally strikes

When your kid spikes a fever just before your vacation, you can’t put them in the car or on a plane. You’ll also want to be near your kid’s regular doctor to fight the virus, so you’re going to have to cancel that vacation.

Travelers have to cancel their trips for all kinds of reasons, and the right travel insurance plan will let you cancel your trip within a certain number of days before your  departure and receive up to 100% of your nonrefundable trip costs back.

5. He crashes into a tree and breaks a leg

Your kid has been skiing for several years, but even the most experienced skier makes mistakes. If your kid crashes into a tree and breaks a leg, will you have the right travel insurance coverage for emergency medical transportation to a hospital where he can be treated?

Medically necessary evacuations are expensive, but a travel insurance plan with coverage for medically necessary evacuations can ensure your kid is safely transported to a hospital for treatment.

6. Your Family Called – Your Daughter is in the Hospital

You left the kids behind for some romantic time on an anniversary trip, but your family called and there has been an accident back home. Can you abandon your trip and get home to be with your child in the hospital?

Sometimes a traveler must end their trip and return home, and this is where trip interruption coverage can help. Travelers who have to abandon their trip for a covered reason can be reimbursed for their unused trip costs and rescheduled return airfare as well.

Travel cons have been around ever since people headed down the road to see new places — here are just a few we’ve recently heard reports on.

1. The Grabby Cabby

We’re all familiar with cab drivers who take the long way around, but what about cabbies who tell you that your hotel has burned down and offers to take you to another (where they collect a commission)? Or this scam: you pay the cab driver and hop out only to notice one of your bags has just sped off with the cab driver!

The solution: Confirm your reservations yourself so you can’t be fooled, and pay attention during your cab driver transactions: count the bags carefully, and check to be sure you haven’t left anything on the seat. Only after that do you hand over the payment.

2. The Pizza Flyer Credit Card Scam

This one tormented the Disney hotels in Orlando, Florida last year. Tired parents and kids come home from a busy day at the park to find a helpful “free delivery pizza” flyer. They decide to order in and get some rest. The friendly person at the pizza place takes their order and their credit card number.

No pizza ever arrives, and the traveler’s credit card number has been sold over the Internet to a foreign country where charges are being made quickly and quietly.

The solution: never, ever give your credit card number out over the phone. Just don’t. That goes for the hotel personnel who call and ask you to verify the number (another version of the scam). If that happens, go to the receptionist desk and handle it directly.

3. The Hot Dog Con Artist

This particular scam is as old as time and it’s done in various ways: spilling a drink on a tourist is a common one.

Here’s how this one works: a passer-by who is eating a hot dog, squirts mustard all over a tourist, prompting that tourist to put down their bags to clean up the mess. While the hot dog con artist is apologizing and helping the tourist, an accomplice steals whatever they can reach and gets away free of notice.

The solution: don’t let others distract you to the point that you lose control over your belongings. Hand your stuff to a fellow traveler, if possible, and work out a system of watching each other’s backs.

4. The ‘Helpful’ Tourist Advisor

Some ‘good samaritan’ tourist advisors – that kindly guy on the street, that friendly woman with the baby carriage – are helpful advisors in name only. Sometimes they just want to get close, perhaps to help you decipher a map, while they pick your pockets.

In other cases, their intent may be more sinister, such as sending you down the wrong path where you can be mugged by an accomplice.

The solution: pay attention when you’re offered help, keep your distance, and watch your valuables. Better yet, get your help from a trusted source – ideally, your own  tourist guide, a smartphone app, or the concierge at your hotel.

5. Foreign Currency Errors

No one handles money in a foreign currency with as much confidence as they do their own native currency. Travelers are often cautious about cash transactions and that hesitance is the clue a thief needs to confuse you. Reduce your risk by having and paying with smaller bills and learn the currency conversions, or use a smartphone app to help you.

The solution: avoid the problem altogether by paying with a credit card for the best exchange rate, but check that receipt carefully!

6. Let’s Practice English

This scam occurs in different versions around the world, but the gist of it goes like this: a pretty young person stops to chat with you and asks for some of your time to practice their English skills. They want to better themselves and get a good job, and you feel sympathetic.

The problem is they take you to a place where they know the management and when it’s time to pay the bill, it’s either an outrageous amount or your credit card number has just been stolen.

The solution: decline offers to help unless you have a way to know the person is legit. Keep your credit card close, watch when it’s run through the machine (if possible), and verify your receipts.

7. The Pickpocket in the Back of the Bus

This is popular in cities with bus tours. Pickpockets – usually working in groups of two or three – scope out the tourists and pick out which ones to rob. While one causes a disturbance, typically in the back of the bus away from the driver, the others steal your small valuables.

This scam works especially well if the bus frequently stops and has exit doors in the back.

The solution: again, stay aware and don’t let distractions cause you to lose control over your valuables.

8. The Market Squeeze

Cramped and congested passageways of market places around the world make the perfect scenario for a pickpocket technique called “the squeeze”. As the crowd presses in around you, you may find yourself crammed between many people with no ability to move your arms. By the time you get free, your pockets have been emptied and the thief is nowhere to be seen.

The solution: watch yourself in crowded areas. Keep your wallet and purse very secure and hidden and avoid thick crowds.

9. Free Music for Everyone

This one is popular in New York’s Times Square and it goes like this: a musician hands a tourist a CD even offering to autograph it. Once it’s in your hands, you’re suddenly surrounded by a host of friends as the musician demands cash and refuses to take the CD back.

The solution: don’t accept things people hand you, and if you get in this situation, place the item on the ground and walk away.

10. Sticky-fingered Monkeys

This one is common in Bali where the monkeys are allowed to roam free. Some enterprising people train the monkeys to retrieve wallets and other valuables, but in some cases, the monkeys are just curious themselves.

The solution: hold tightly to purses, wallets, and backpacks and secure items like glasses that can be easily snatched. Otherwise, you could be looking for a treat to trade with a monkey.

Travelers who get in a bad spot on a trip, and then make a claim with their travel insurance company, often feel like they’ve been cheated when their claim is denied.

More often than not, however, they’ve made a mistake when purchasing their travel insurance.

These are the most common mistakes made by travelers when buying their travel insurance.

1. Buying ‘travel insurance’ with your ticket

Lately it seems that everyone is getting in on the trip protection game, and for a traveler, it seems like the easy choice: buy your airline ticket and for just a few dollars more, you’ve got trip cancellation insurance.

Our comment board is full of complaints about these types of plans. The problem is that the coverage is very narrowly defined and almost never delivers the protection a traveler wants and needs.

See that link to buy Travel Insurance now? Don’t click it!

2. Assuming your Credit Card has the Coverage you need

This is a common mistake, travelers avoid purchasing travel insurance because they believe they already have it with their credit card. While the advertising may look similar, the travel protections offered with your credit card agreement simply don’t measure up to the level of protection offered by a true travel insurance plan from a reputable travel insurance company.

See Credit Card travel protection vs. Travel Insurance for more information.

3. Forgetting about recent illnesses

If you have seen a doctor for an illness or injury within the look-back period, that’s going to be considered a pre-existing medical condition. If you encounter a problem related to that condition and you don’t have the pre-existing medical condition waiver, your trip insurance could be invalid.

See our review of Pre-existing medical condition coverage to determine whether you need this waiver.

4. Ignoring the Exclusions

Every insurance plan has exclusions, but the exclusions in your travel insurance plan can leave you in a bad spot. Travel insurance companies have to limit the coverage to limit their liability.

We recently encountered a father who was angry because his daughter’s trip interruption wasn’t covered. His daughter had abandoned her trip because her best friend committed suicide. Neither suicide nor best friends are included in the covered reasons for trip interruption, and reading the policy description is essential if you are to understand the plan.

See What Travel Insurance Does Not Cover for more details.

5. Neglecting the covered reasons for trip cancellation

Many people assume ‘trip cancellation’ means for any reason at all, and that’s just not true. For example, you can’t cancel your trip because you just lost your job if that’s not a covered reason listed in your policy (many policies do cover this).

All travel insurance plans provide a clear list of covered reasons for trip cancellation. If your reason isn’t on the list, your cancellation won’t be covered.

6. Failing to purchase the plan in time

While you can buy travel insurance right up until the day before you leave, nearly all plans require that you purchase your plan with a certain number of days from making your initial trip payment to have coverage for a number of travel risks, like pre-existing medical conditions and hurricanes, for example.

Buying your travel insurance as soon as possible is the best way to avoid common problems travelers encounter. See When should I buy my travel insurance? for additional information.

7. Providing incorrect trip details

When you receive your trip insurance documents in e-mail, stop and verify you’ve provided the correct information, such as your travel start and return dates, the traveler’s ages, your target destination, your total trip cost, etc. If anything is wrong here, it can invalidate your travel insurance plan.

The solution?

Every travel insurance plan comes with a free review period and in that timeframe, you can change or cancel your policy (for a minimal fee). Luckily all travel insurance policies – even those you purchase from the airline – have a free review period in which you can make changes and even cancel your policy.

Related topics

Making changes to your policy
Canceling your policy