It’s an all too common scenario these days. As airlines have jacked their baggage fees, passengers worked harder to save a buck by carrying less and schlepping it all through security themselves. As a result, overhead bins fill more quickly and some passengers are asked to hand over their carry-ons.

Wait! Passengers are told to put their valuable stuff in their carry-ons so they don’t get stolen from their checked luggage. We’ve established that luggage raiding remains a travel hazard, but how safe is that formerly carry-on bag now?

Not very safe apparently.

The airlines will not compensate for damage or loss to valuables such as cell phones, cameras, laptops and tablets, documents, copies of your passport, eyeglasses, jewelry … the list goes on. So, if you have to travel with those items you pack them in your carry-on right?

If you are told that the overhead bins are too full and you’ll have to hand over your bag, the flight attendants don’t follow up with: “and please take your valuables out because if they get stolen, you won’t be compensated.” The bottom line is that the airline is not accountable.

So what’s a passenger to do?

Don’t simply hand over your bag at the plane entrance. If you must do this, remove anything that is on the airline’s ‘valuables’ list, which are at least (but not limited to):

• electronics, including laptops, iPads, e-readers, anything with an on/off switch
• cameras, lenses, and associated equipment
• jewelry and watches
• designer purses and handbags
• designer clothing and shoes
• cash, credit and debit cards, passports
• documents of any kind
• fragile items, art, and antiques
• heirlooms, collectibles, and artifacts
• antlers
• CDs, DVDs, and games
• china, glass, ceramics, and pottery
• computer equipment and audio/visual equipment
• flowers and plants
• medicines
• keys
• perfume
• alcohol
• gift cards, gift certificates and money
• musical instruments
• natural fur items
• tools

If you’re not sure what’s on that particular airline’s ‘valuables’ list, ask the flight attendant. If you appear worried enough, they may provide the list or move some bags around so you can keep your stuff with you.

Many travelers want to know how to accurately assess their travel medical needs. Below are the steps you should follow to assess your needs, then make the right travel medical insurance purchase.

Start by doing an accurate assessment:

1. Examine your current medical insurance plan. Check whether travel medical insurance is available with that plan and find out if that travel medical coverage is primary or secondary. In most cases, your health insurance plan is primary at home and, if travel medical coverage is available, it is secondary outside the country. That means you will have to pay for your medical costs when you travel and apply for reimbursement after. See our page on understanding primary vs. secondary medical coverage for more information.
2. Determine your medical transportation coverage. In most cases, your need for transportation back home is covered through emergency ambulance services, but medical transport and medical treatment are two distinct sections of a travel medical plan, so you’ll need to look for both. The costs for emergency medical transportation can be quite high, and if you don’t have coverage, you’ll have to foot the bill yourself. See this story on one traveler who encountered a horrific situation on a vacation to Mexico. If you’re taking a Mediterranean cruise or a trip to China, your emergency transportation costs could run into the tens or hundreds of thousands, depending on the situation.
3. Rate your own health. If you have a pre-existing medical condition, such as heart disease or diabetes, then traveling without travel medical coverage and failing to get a pre-existing medical condition waiver is a recipe for disaster. Even if you’re very healthy, if you’ve visited a doctor in the past 180 days, you should be careful that a recurrence of the condition that caused you to see the doctor won’t reemerge because that situation won’t be covered by your travel medical insurance.
4. Determine your travel activities and relative risks. If you plan to bungee jump off a bridge on your trip, then you will want to be sure that you have a waiver for high adventure activities with your travel insurance plan. Most travel insurance plans specifically exclude activities like hang gliding, skiing, parasailing, whitewater rafting, and more, but purchasing either an adventure travel insurance plan or a plan with a waiver for adventure activities will provide the coverage you need.

Then, purchase a plan to cover those needs:

1. If you want your travel medical plan to pay the hospital and medical facilities directly, then you’ll want to be sure that your travel insurance plan offers primary medical coverage.
2. If you want protection for emergency medical transportation, then you’ll want to think about how far you will have to travel to get back home and have enough coverage. Remember, with a travel insurance plan, you’ll have coverage for medical transport to an appropriate medical facility and also back home after you’ve adequately recovered.
3. Depending on your current health, you’ll want to purchase coverage that will cover your medical costs if you experience the recurrence of a pre-existing medical condition. Any condition for which you’ve sought treatment in the past few months can be considered a pre-existing condition.
4. Depending on your current health, you’ll choose a travel medical plan with enough coverage for the risks you are taking

Many people are thrown off guard by the cheap prices of travel insurance, but it’s important not to be. If you’ve done your research and selected a travel insurance plan that delivers the coverage you need and the price is reasonable, even cheap, it just means you’ve qualified for a good rate.

Travel insurance can be quite comprehensive for the price.

For example, if two travelers from Kansas, ages 32 and 36 find a great package deal on a week in Scotland for $3,000, they can have comprehensive travel insurance coverage for just $154 more. We ran these trip details through our travel insurance comparison tool and found a Travel Select plan from Travelex that includes:

• 100% trip cancellation
• 150% trip interruption
• $50,000 per person primary emergency medical
• $500,000 per person emergency medical evacuation
• $750 per person travel delay
• $250 per person baggage

Our cheap travel insurance recommendations

The following are our recommendations for getting an adequate, but perhaps cheap, travel insurance plan:

1. We recommend choosing an amount of travel medical coverage based on an assessment of your travel medical needs.
2. We also recommend not over-spending on your travel insurance plan. See our 5 Rules for Saving Money on your Travel Insurance Plan for details.

And don’t worry if you initially purchase the wrong policy - travel insurance plans come with a review period of 10-14 days and during that time, you can make changes to your plan and even cancel it (for a small fee).

In a maritime emergency where the ship must be abandoned, the rules of Naval and Maritime tradition are as follows: passengers first, then the crew, and then the captain.

Why is the captain the last to leave the ship?

The reasoning behind the order of ship abandonment is that the captain is responsible for the passengers and cargo on the ship. In addition, legal title to a shipwreck hinges upon whether the owner has abandoned the vessel or not. Abandoned ships are fair game to treasure hunters and the first diver to take possession of the wreck typically gets to keep the bounty.

What constitutes abandonment depends on the particulars of the case, but typically a shipwreck has to be completely submerged for years with no attempt from the owners to salvage it before any court will declare it abandoned, but it’s unlikely that the Costa Concordia will ever be declared abandoned. First, much of the ship remains above water and second, the owners are making an active effort at recovery.

What will happen to the passenger’s sunken belongings?

More than 4,000 people fled the sinking ship and every one of them left behind what they brought on the boat: electronics, jewelry, clothing, and more.  Salvage crews began to work on the capsized ship already and if marine engineers are able to right the ship and tow it to safety, the owners may be able to collect property from the cabins and return it to the passengers and crew.

That’s what happened when the Empress of the North, operating by Majestic America Line of Seattle, ran aground southwest of Juneau Alaska in 2007 (although the reports of passenger care and was far different than those coming from the passengers of the Costa Concordia). In that situation, passengers also left the ship with little other than their personal identification and medication, but they were reunited with their belongings later.

What can passengers expect from the Costa Concordia operators?

Unfortunately, in the situation of the Costa Concordia sinking, there’s likely to be a lot of lost and damaged property and passengers can file claims with the cruise line for their missing possessions, but most cruise tickets limit their liability for lost or damaged goods. The standard cap is $150 and these contracts specifically exclude any liability for cash and expensive items like jewelry and electronics.

Passengers without travel insurance are likely to be very disappointed in what they eventually receive for their belongings. The baggage coverage with a travel insurance plan will have limits on individual items and expensive items as well, but the policy limits are typically much higher than that offered by the cruise line.

In addition, if a traveler scheduled their electronics and other expensive items on their homeowner’s policy, they may have some option for reimbursement there.

While it’s important for cruise passengers to recognize that the bizarre and heartbreaking tragedy of the Costa Concordia is a truly rare event, that may not ease the fears of people who have a future booking on a cruise, whether it’s operated by Costa Cruises or not.

I have a future booking on Costa Concordia. What are my options?

Under more normal circumstances, if a cruise company has to cancel a departure, they will offer a full refund or an alternative voyage -– typically with some kind of incentive compensation or treats attached to make you feel better. Then, it’s your choice.

This, as you may imagine, is not a normal situation. If you have a future reservation on Costa Concordia, you’ll have to work with the Costa Cruises company. Depending on how far out your voyage is scheduled will likely determine how soon you are contacted by the company.

I have a future booking on any cruise line, Costa Cruises included, and I want to cancel. What are my options?

Some travelers may feel that until they know what went wrong, they don’t want to sail. What are their options for getting their money back?

The typical procedure for cruise trip cancellations are, very broadly: cancel with a certain number of months in advance, pay a cancellation fee, and you’re out. Cancel within a certain number of days or less of departure, or choose not to show, and all your money is lost.

It’s important to remember that most cruises involve costs that are outside the actual cruise ship charges – they also involve airline tickets, hotel reservations, and more.

By default, travel insurance doesn’t provide reimbursement when a traveler changes their mind and as sensational as the news reports are, that’s still what it is – changing your mind about the trip. Travelers with ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage with their policies, however, do have the option to cancel for 50-100% of their trip costs for any reason at all, including changing your mind.

Follow-up Warning: In most cases, travelers must purchase their travel insurance within a certain number of days of making their initial booking to have the ‘cancel for any reason’ option available. See the important notes about ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage.

For reasons not yet fully understood, the cruise ship Costa Concordia struck the rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio and capsized with over 4,000 passengers and crew aboard. At least five people are now known to have died in this tragedy and dozens remain missing.

Travel insurance would give you a ‘lifeline’ to call

While the immediate task of the cruise management company should be to help the survivors, as well as the relatives of the victims, helping that number of people is difficult for even the most well organized team. Travelers with travel insurance have a third-party to call for assistance – and these folks are trained to handle travel emergencies.

Arranging medical care or evacuation

Survivors who regularly take necessary prescriptions could be struggling to find replacements. Those who were injured or suffered hypothermia from the freezing water may be struggling to find medical help and may be facing foreign medical bills. Travel insurance assistance services can locate local medical care providers and even arrange for an evacuation.

Replacing lost passports and credit cards

Survivors of this bizarre tragedy were forced to abandon the ship, in most cases, with little more than the clothing on their backs. If they were lucky, they had a cell phone in their pocket. In the dead of night, these former passengers were virtually stranded in foreign country without their wallets, identification, passports, credit cards, cash, and more. Travel insurance services can help travelers replace their passports, obtain new credit cards, and even advance cash from their own accounts or from family.

Making new travel arrangements

As the survivors have begun returning to their homes, many tell tales of finding their own transportation to other towns, and having to rely on the kindness of strangers for temporary lodging. With travel insurance in their corner, stranded travelers have help finding and paying for alternative flights back home, lodging, and replacement clothing and personal items.

Obtaining emergency medications can be difficult for many reasons and one of those is as simple as different medicines used for the same treatment in different countries, or medications having different names in other countries.

So, beyond the measures you do to protect yourself from a travel disaster, what happens if your prescription medicines (or your vitamins) are stolen or fall overboard, for example?

Travel insurance plans always have a travel assistance services and those folks can help you:

1. Contact your doctor back home and have a new prescription sent to you.
2. Work with a pharmacist or local doctor to convert that prescription into something the traveler can purchase to replace their other medicines.
3. Contact a local doctor to have you examined and get a new prescription.

Does travel insurance pay for my emergency prescriptions?

It depends on the individual plan, of course, but in general:

• If you have adequate travel medical coverage with your travel insurance plan, then the cost of those prescription medicines may be covered by your travel insurance plan.
• If you did pack your prescriptions in your checked luggage and that luggage is stolen, the cost of replacing your prescriptions would be included in your baggage coverage.

How can travelers avoid a prescription medicine emergency?

For those who need to use prescription drugs on a regular basis, it’s important to make sure you have enough for the trip you are taking. This is especially important if your trip gets extended. Remember the travel disruptions caused by the Icelandic volcano?

We’ve always recommended that travelers carry their prescription medicines (in their original containers) in their carry-on (rather than in their checked luggage) because you’ll have it when you need it – even if your bag gets misrouted and ends up in another country or stolen.

Another important step is to make a copy of your prescriptions and carry those copies with you. Just like making a copy of your passport identification page, this can help you get replacements because your doctor’s phone number, the correct dosage, etc. is right there on the prescription.

Here’s a worst-case scenario we recently read:  a group of girlfriends was traveling through Spain when a young man bursts around a corner, smashing into the group and knocking several of the young women violently to the ground. A second young man races by, grabs two of their purses, and sprints down another alley.

Ouch!

Inside each of those purses were their passports and every money-retrieving option the young women had: their cash, ATM card, and credit cards – all gone.

3 Steps to Being Prepared and Avoiding Purse or Wallet Theft

1. In crowded areas, consider wearing a money belt under your clothing and store your passport, cash, credit cards, and ATM card there instead. It’s very difficult to steal when it’s not hanging off your shoulder or in your back pocket.
2. Have a sheet of your account numbers and bank phone numbers with you, but have a system of switching the numbers by one or two digits (so the hotel staff can’t find it and use it illegally). If your wallet is stolen, you’ll have the necessary information to report it to the police and cancel the cards.
3. Make a copy of your passport identification page and leave one behind with a friend or family member, pack the other with you. (Again, store it safely when you arrive.) This will help if you need to replace your passport.
4. Before you leave, get a back up card from your bank or have a secondary credit card on hand and stored in a different place. You’ll still have the headache of reporting the theft and canceling all the stolen cards, but you’ll have a way to get around and continue your trip.

We’ve mentioned before that you should not travel with your debit card, for a number of reasons, but many of us forget to clear out our wallets when we travel – especially if we travel frequently.  See these top 6 strategies for protecting your identity on a trip for more information.