Is Travel Insurance Worth It? Your Questions, Answered

Vacations are an investment: you spend countless hours researching the best attractions and designing your ideal getaway. However, what happens if your plans unexpectedly change after you’ve booked your vacation? With this type of investment on the line, it’s important to ensure it’s protected, just as you would protect any other large-scale purchase. This is where travel insurance comes in. Travel insurance helps reimburse nonrefundable costs for hotel stays, tours, and tickets you can’t use due to weather events, travel delays or interruptions, cancellations, or medical emergencies during your trip. As travel professionals, we highly recommend adding travel insurance to your vacation package. However, we’re often asked whether travel insurance is worth it. Below, we answer the most common questions we get asked about travel insurance and share our insights on why you should include travel insurance when budgeting for your next vacation.

When Should I Get Travel Insurance?

We recommend travel insurance for all the vacations we plan. Vacations are large investments of time, effort, emotions, logistics, and financial resources. It’s important to treat vacations like the large-scale investments they are, and travel insurance is the best way to protect your investment properly. Without travel insurance, you risk losing hundreds or thousands of dollars when something as simple as a canceled or moved flight completely changes your vacation plans. Travel insurance is a low-cost protection plan that ensures you’re compensated when the unexpected happens, and you can’t travel in the way you originally planned. 

What Does Travel Insurance Cover?

Like other types of insurance, travel insurance comes in many plans with coverage options tailored to your family's needs. Generally, travel insurance can offer coverage for common travel scenarios like: 

Trip Cancellation and Interruption
Receive reimbursement up to 100% of trip costs if you need to cancel for an approved reason. Trip cancellation also covers family members, travel companions, or business partners you were going to travel with who can no longer attend. This coverage also provides compensation if you’re sick or injured during your trip, or if a doctor advises someone in your party not to travel due to a recent diagnosis.

Travel Delays and Missed Connections
This coverage helps you recoup costs for meals, hotel stays, and missed tours due to canceled or delayed flights. It also covers additional travel costs if delayed or canceled flights cause you to miss your cruise’s embarkation point.

Medical and Dental Expenses
Travel insurance covers medical expenses up to a certain limit if you're sick or injured during your vacation. It also covers emergency dental services if needed while on vacation. 

Emergency Evacuation
This coverage reimburses you for emergency transportation and evacuation to the nearest medical facility following an emergency or severe injury. 

Travel Inconvenience
This coverage reimburses you for unused payments for unexpected travel changes made by your destination or flight. For example, if your cruise ship cannot dock at a port and you lose money spent on an excursion, this coverage reimburses those non-refundable payments. You can also receive reimbursement for lengthy flight delays or cruise diversions.

Lost or Delayed Baggage
This coverage provides compensation to purchase or replace personal items, such as clothing and toiletries, if your baggage is lost, stolen, or delayed. It also covers the value of the items in your luggage.

What Travel Insurance Options Are Available? We partner with Travel Guard to provide travel insurance to our clients. Travel Guard provides several packages tailored to your family’s needs and budget. The Essentials plan offers trip cancellation and interruption coverage up to $150,000, along with coverages for lost luggage, travel delays, and medical expenses. The Preferred and Deluxe plans offer trip interruption coverage up to $225,000, as well as higher limits for medical care and other expenses. All Travel Guard plans cover children under 17 (one child per adult plan). Not sure which plan is right for you? No worries! Our travel agents review your options and help you choose the best plan for your trip. 

We also partner with Medjet to provide premier air-medical transport services, travel security, and crisis response coverage. Medjet does not replace travel insurance but works with it to offer additional coverage for emergency medical transport, allowing you to receive care at a facility of your choosing rather than just the nearest medically adequate facility as dictated by your medical insurance. 

What Happens to My Vacation if My Flight Is Canceled Due to Weather?

Many travel insurance plans, including those with Travel Guard, cover trip cancellation and delays due to qualifying inclement weather. The type of coverage depends on the nature of the delay. For example, the Essentials plan provides a $500 allowance for every 12 hours your trip is delayed. If a weather delay causes you to miss a cruise embarkation or connecting flight, some plans offer up to $1,000 to help you catch up to your vacation.

What Happens if Someone in My Party Gets Sick Before the Trip?

If a child, parent, or travel companion becomes ill or a doctor advises against traveling, you can typically be reimbursed for up to 100% of the vacation cost. If someone in your travel party has a pre-existing medical condition that may impact their ability to travel at the last minute, you can add coverage for their travel expenses as long as you purchase the plan at least 15 days before traveling.

What Is CFAR Coverage?

While standard plans offer cancellation coverage for approved reasons, you may want the option to cancel your trip at any time, regardless of whether the reason is on an approved list. This is called Cancel For Any Reason coverage (CFAR), and it can reimburse you up to 50% of your trip cost for cancellation. You must add this coverage within 15 days of booking your trip to be eligible for this coverage.

Should I Get Travel Insurance Directly Through My Vacation Destination?

Many travel destinations like Disney, Universal, Royal Caribbean, and Sandals offer travel insurance plans that can be added to your vacation package. Plans for these destinations offer one-size-fits-all coverage that may or may not be a better fit than third-party coverage like Travel Guard. When you book with our travel advisors, we’ll discuss all your options to find the one that best suits your trip. What fits one of our clients’ needs won’t necessarily be the best option for the next family.

Is Travel Insurance Worth It?

Yes, we recommend travel insurance for all the trips we plan. Vacations are a large investment, and they should be protected. Emergencies can occur at any time, and it’s best to be prepared! Whether you’re planning a year in advance or a last-minute getaway two weeks from now, travel insurance can help you have peace of mind knowing your trip can be easily modified or canceled if something unexpected happens.

Plan Your Next Vacation With Just Add Magic Travel®

Don’t let unexpected circumstances stress you out. Ensure you and your family are ready for an adventure, no matter what happens! Travel insurance takes the worry and stress out of changing your vacation, so you’re ready for your next adventure, no matter what happens. When you book your vacation with Just Add Magic Travel, we’ll discuss the available protection plans and which options may be best based on your family’s needs and current budget. Contact us today to add travel insurance to your reservation or get a quote here to start planning.