Sifting through the Travel Insurance Mess
When it comes to researching travel insurance products to protect you, your health, loved ones, or ipods while traveling abroad on your backpacking journey, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Online, everyone and their dog is willing to sell you comprehensive, cheap travel insurance. Amongst online travel advertisers, I’d have to say travel insurance companies, affiliates, and agents have to be one of most active advertisers eager to get their unique travel insurance in front of your overwhelmed, lost self.
Do you Need travel insurance?
Good question. As a skeptic by nature, i’m not certain. However, the overwhelming consensus online is that travel insurance is necessary. Highly regarded Matador Travel Network property the Traveler’s Notebook says:
Travel insurance is a necessity. You need travel insurance. If you get sick or injured, if your things are stolen, if you need to cancel your trip or if you need an evacuation, it’s essential to have an insurance company backing you up.
Travel insurance is cheap and easy to get. There’s no excuse not to buy a policy. If you’re traveling and don’t have insurance, you should get coverage right now – it takes less than 15 minutes.
So if you want to take their word for it, yes, Traveler’s insurance is important.
Fortunately, I haven’t been in a position to purchase my own traveler’s insurance. My university assigned me mandatory travel insurance for my current studies abroad, and I’m fortunate enough to have a comprehensive health insurance plan at home that would cover everything anyways. Out of curiosity and relevance to the readers though, here are the best authoritative and reliable resources to scour before buying travel insurance. So atleast I’ll attempt to point you in the right direction.
Resources on How to Choose Travel Insurance
Sponsored Mention - CheapTravelInsurance.com
With that said, CheapTravelInsurance.com is an insurance seller that caters to the Backpacker’s needs. This provider offers packages tailored for backpackers, gap years, etc. The site has a pretty comprehensive set of offerings that give you a variety of options that will probably suit your needs - as long as you know what they are.
As far as its legitimacy goes, its been in operation since 2001 and more can be read about its faffiliations and underwriters on its about page. Overall, with its variety of policy options comparable to industry leaders, a quick online search for quotes using their engine is may make CheapTravelInsurance.com a good first stop in your hunt for cheap, affordable travel insurance.
Finding Cheap Travel Insurance I You are Over 65 Years...
Around 30% of policies exclude claims from travellers aged over 65 and many exclude claims from those aged over 70. Different companies also have different upper age limits; for example Marks and Spencer travel insurance has an age limit of 70 for it.....
Hi,
I came across your site through DP (link) and want to share the link that would be similar to my article:
http://currate.com/blog/index.php/2009/12/travel-insurance-is-it-really-a-good-idea-for-the-traveler/
You can post the comment there - to let my readers know about it.
Cheers,
Robert
Currate.com Developer/Publisher
The problem with most travel insurance, especially for the budget traveller, is that you often need to pay for hospital fees out of pockets (especially in more exotic locations). Even if you have a not so serious accident (i.e. break a leg, arm, tooth, etc) you may find yourself having to pay $100's of USD to get seen.
Always take this into account with any insurance plan. Based on my experience, you get what you pay for.