Travel Insurance - Are You Protected?

Recent terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and epidemics of diseases have people running for travel insurance. There are limitations though. If you become worried about something happening and decide you need to cancel your trip, your policy may not cover it.

If your concern focuses on potential bombings in the subway, or plots involving liquid explosives, those concerns probably aren't covered. If you think there's a chance of a tropical storm slamming into the shore you love, it probably isn't covered. Travel insurance doesn't have to cover any of these things.

The reason people buy traveler's policies is that it is supposed to pay certain losses while traveling that won't be refunded. Items such as the airline ticket and/or hotel deposits. It only applies to those situations where a policy holder HAS to cancel or delay a trip, or in the event the insured gets stranded it will help cover extra costs.

Medical services are also covered by insurance should you become ill overseas and need medical evaluations. This can be crucial since there are times when your insurance may not cover overseas medical care. However, each of these programs will have certain exclusions.

A lot of the potential disasters that increase the insurance sales, end up not being covered. A lot of programs don't cover terrorist acts at all. So, you must select your travel insurance wisely.

Even if travel insurance is found and it doesn't exclude terroristic acts, there could be a provision that it will cover the insured only if there has been a bombing or act of terrorism in the travel area within a month. So if there is a terrorist act in Paris, and your trip was planned for London, your insurance will not cover the costs if you cancel. The concepts of fear or trepidation are not provided for in an insurance policy.

However, fear is exactly what has increased the amount of travel insurance policy sales. And the point is that fear is one of the things that most insurance policies don't cover. Another way that some customers are caught off guard is if they don't purchase their travel insurance within 15 days of booking their trip, should there be an issue such as terrorism.

Many insurers did pay out for costs of meals and hotel rooms for insured travelers who were stranded in London during 2006, after the failed plot to blow up planes with liquid explosives occurred. However, the policies would not pay if you wanted to cancel because there wasn't a real attack.

As with other types of insurance, the fee charged for the travel insurance is directly related to the total cost of your excursion and what benefits you want included in the policy. A comprehensive policy covers; cancellations, delays that strand you, lost luggage, flight accident, and emergency medical attention. You have the option of buying just the insurance that you specifically want.

There are even companies who sell policies that allow you to cancel for any reason. These policies will offer the holder up to 74% of the cost of the trip if you cancel. The downside is that these types of policies also usually cost about 40 percent more than the price of a standard insurance policy.

In the United States, there are about seventeen million travel insurance policies sold annually. Purchases of travel insurance increased by 100% since the bombings of the World Trade Center in New York in 9-1-2001. The trend is not anticipated to change in the near future, considering the numerous health and medical emergencies in the headlines every week.

What the general public does not realize, though, is that many airlines, hotels and cruise lines generally waive fees and restrictions on re-booking your trip. So, you do not necessarily need to purchase extra insurance.