Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, that’s what SCUBA stands for, and SCUBA divers travel the world over to find the best dive sites. So, what do these particular travelers worry about most when insuring on their trips?

1. What if bad weather wipes out my dive trip?
2. What if my checked equipment doesn’t arrive when I do?
3. What if the dive operator goes bankrupt?
4. What if I’m injured or get decompression sickness and need medical care?

Bad weather

Let’s say you’ve scheduled a dive trip to Turks & Caicos during hurricane season. After a hurricane strikes, you may find the dive resort is technically livable but the facilities may not be very functional or fun. You may not even have a dive boat if that’s been sunk or destroyed.

The key to trip cancellation and trip interruption coverage when it comes to hurricanes is that the destination must be uninhabitable for benefits to be available.

Your best bet? Protect yourself with ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage and you’ll get at least some of your non refundable trip costs back.

Missing luggage

Ah, so you thought you were smart and carried on your suitcase but checked that huge bag of SCUBA gear. Well, you were smart. You saved some dollars on checked luggage fees, but if your gear bag goes missing, what can you do?

Some travel insurance plans have sports equipment coverage that provides extra cash when your sporting equipment is lost or delayed. With a call to your travel insurance provider, you can rent or purchase replacement equipment and hope yours turns up eventually.

Bankruptcy or financial default

So, even if all goes well as you travel to your destination, you cannot guarantee it will all be well when you arrive. What happens if the dive operator to whom you sent non refundable payments to turns out to have closed their doors due to bankruptcy or default?

Banging on their shuttered windows and locked doors won’t get your money back, but some travel insurance plans include financial default in their coverage. So, if you happen to give all your diving dollars to some bankrupt shark, you can at least get a refund from your travel insurance company and hopefully find a replacement dive operator.

Medical care

Now this one is slightly trickier because travel insurance companies like to limit their risk by isolating dangerous activities and limiting those from coverage. That means that most travel insurance plans specifically exclude activities like SCUBA diving unless you follow some rules:

1. You must already be PADI or NAUI certified.
2. You have to be diving with a certified dive instructor.
3. Often, you have to stay above 130 feet (which, if you’re a diver, makes sense).

All those rules being met, many travel insurance plans still require you to purchase an optional sports rider for coverage to be available. That being said, if you do all those things and you are injured or become ill on your trip, then your travel medical coverage will kick in to the plan limits.

During the trip

Any time you encounter a travel problem that may be covered under your policy, it’s important to contact the travel insurance company as soon as possible. They’re your backup team and they’ll let you know what’s covered and what you can do about the problem you’ve encountered.

A recent poll surveyed travel agents and their clients about their perspectives on adventure travel insurance plans. A whopping 86% of adventure travelers see the need for and purchase travel insurance plans specifically offering adventure travel protections. These are perhaps the most informed travelers we’ve encountered. Perhaps the realization that they could get hurt doing what they do has made them more aware of the need for protection.

Where do adventure travelers go?

When it comes to adventure travel locations, these were the winning destinations:

• 29% of agents say their clients head to Central and South America
• 21% say their clients prefer Africa as their destination

How long do adventure travelers stay?

Apparently adventure travelers like to stay gone for awhile – 65% of adventure travelers book six- to 10-day getaways and 26% book 11-14 day trips.

What activities to adventure travelers participate in?

According to travel agents, these are the winning activities:

• 30% of adventure travelers prefer snorkeling and SCUBA diving,
• 23% prefer hiking and climbing, and
• 23% prefer skiing and snowboarding

What is not covered by adventure travel plans?

It’s important to note that not every kind of adventure IS covered by your travel insurance plan.

Running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, for example, isn’t covered because a bodily injury that occurs while participating in this event would not be due to an accident. Specifically, you put yourself in a dangerous spot and got caught, but you knew what you were doing when you did it.

Anything that occurs while intoxicated or on drugs isn’t covered. Again, this makes sense because you willfully put yourself in a position of risk and got caught.

See the Adventure Activities Coverage page for more information and coverage details for adventure travelers.

We hear this all the time: “How do I know I have enough, but not too much, travel insurance?” and we all know:

• Hurricanes, tornadoes, snowstorms and floods happen.
• Planes are delayed and cruise departures get missed – it happens all the time.
• Kids get sick and travel plans have to be scrapped.
• Emergencies happen back home and you have to be there.
• Work conflicts arise and you have to abandon your trip.

Look, we’re just like other travelers – we want to be protected, but we don’t want to have a lot of expensive coverage lying around that we never need or use. It’s a waste of money we could be spending on vacation fun after all!

So to answer this question, we did a lot of research and put together the information you need to determine whether you have enough coverage or not. It’s called 4 Steps to 100% confidence in your travel insurance plan, and while that’s a brave-sounding title, we think the content is up to the standard.

This content lays out the four steps you can follow to be sure that you 1. understand your plan and 2. have enough coverage to get home safely.

We all want to be safe and enjoy our trips, but a single injury or illness can wipe out your financial reserves – even if you’re traveling inside your home country! Take a look at the 4 Steps to 100% confidence in your travel insurance plan and let us know what you think.

A decade after the September 11th attacks on the United States and its people, we took a look back to see how those events specifically shaped and changed the travel insurance industry.

As a result of the September 11th attacks, travel insurance evolved to re-define the coverage for events such as these and added coverages to help ease travelers’ concerns, including:

• Trip cancellations expanded to include terrorism – specifically, terrorism and terrorist attacks is well defined in travel insurance policies, and some policies allow travelers to cancel their trip for a full refund if a terror attack occurs at their intended destination within 30 days of their arrival. Read about Terrorism and Mandatory Evacuation coverage. It’s important to understand that an attack defined as being a terrorist event must occur within the defined time frame in order for a traveler to make a cancellation claim. If you’re simply worried an attack will occur, you’ll need the following coverage.
• ‘Cancel for any reason’ is a new addition – after the September 11th attacks, people were very uneasy with the idea of flying and many simply chose not to. ‘Cancel for any reason’ coverage extends the covered reasons for trip cancellation and allows nervous travelers to cancel their trips for 50%-100% of their trip costs back depending on the plan.
• Security evacuations were added too – when a travel encounters a dangerous situation such as a military coup, a civil uprising, or impending natural disaster, they can request rescue from their travel insurance company if they have this coverage. Travelers who simply cannot avoid travel to hot spots find great comfort in knowing they can tap into a coordination team and resources to help them get to safety.

Not all travel insurance plans have these coverages, so as always, it’s important for the traveler to read and understand their travel plan certificate. That document will outline specifically what your coverage includes and, sometimes more importantly, what is specifically excluded.