Should you buy trip insurance for your Hawaii vacation or another trip? We’ll be looking at this more in our new three-part series that will include tips on everything from how to decide if you need it to the specific coverage types available.
Trip insurance is a question that we think should follow only one step behind forking over your credit card for expensive airline tickets and accommodations. We used to be cavalear about this and almost never used trip insurance domestically. Well all that has changed.
Non-cancellable, non-changeable travel is part of the new pricing paradigm that we all face.
Here’s a case in point today: On booking a hotel reservation we were able to save a hefty 25% by reserving early and making a non-refundable reservation. In this case, buying trip insurance to protect that purchase helped confirm our decision to purchase something that could not be changed.
The decision to buy trip insurance largely comes down to this….
How much money will you lose in the event we have to cancel for reasons that can be insured? If that is much more than the cost of trip insurance, we typically buy coverage. And as pointed out above, we’re now also factoring in how much saving is possible with non-refundable advance purchases.
Don’t make an emotional knee jerk decision.
Insurance, be it car, home or trip insurance, isn’t some kind of blanket that protects us and keeps us warm. It is all very specific. Annoyingly so. Buying without understanding is probably of little to no use such that you might be better saving that money to go out to dinner.
Should you buy coverage from an trip insurance company, from multi-company trip insurance agency or from the airline, or accommodation provider directly?
Stay tuned for more. Up next,
Travel insurance part 1: Getting started
- Reasons to consider trip insurance
- What information you’ll need to start shopping
- Timing on buying trip insurance
- Basic coverage types
- Trip cancellation and interruption
- Baggage loss, delay, and damage
- Travel delays
Travel insurance part 2:Â Understanding specific coverage components
- Medical
- Dental
- Evacuation
- Hospital of choice
- Cancel for any reason
You stated the exact point we use to justify the expense of trip insurance: How much will you lose in the event you are forced to cancel? However, we do not buy an umbrella policy. Since we always plan our travel a la carte, we only cover the major things: airline tickets and condo rentals. Everything else is minor in comparison and not worth our worry. Just about all the travel sites offer insurance on airline tickets with barebones coverage for the usual emergency issues, and that is all we need. Most reputable real estate management companies (and even owner-operated) offer insurance for the condo rental. Get those two things covered and you have minimized your exposure.
Hi,
We will be coming to Hawaii in late April 2017 for the Norwegian cruise. My question is with the airline ticket prices now. We are traveling from Houston and the prices have risen drastically over the last month. When is the best time to buy?
Thank you for any help you can give me.
Hi Sandy,
About $850 nonstop or save up to $100 with one stop. Might improve if you wait and since that is after spring break, probably no harm in trying. Having said that, we aren’t seeing any great prices for fall or spring in that market, and thus aren’t confident it will get better.
Aloha.