• Flight insurance
Many of us grew up noticing those insurance kiosks at airports. They offer to pay out big bucks if you bought the insurance, the plane crashed and you were on it. Advice: In fact, if you annualized the premium, it's the most expensive kind of travel insurance you can buy.
• Trip Cancellation and Interruption insurance
It is a kind of insurance that can provide coverage of your insured trip cost when you or a traveling companion cancel or interrupt a trip for covered reasons. If you get sick, or miss your trip, or the travel provider (airline, cruise line, bus transfer company) goes out of business, you're not left high and dry. You're covered. But if you’re flying on a ＄50 Southwest Airlines ticket from Burbank to Las Vegas, you have an incredibly small investment to protect.
• Health Care insurance
This is perhaps the most confusing area. Most people think they are covered if they already have existing health care insurance. Within the United States, that’s true. Outside the U.S., that’s not true. And in many cases, even if you are covered for basic emergency care overseas, your current health insurance does not cover you to evacuate you and repatriate you back to the U.S. This is where "Medical Evacuation and Repatriation" insurance comes into play. It's an insurance program (usually an annual premium, not often purchased per trip) where if you get sick or injured overseas the policy will get you treated, stabilized and flown back to the U.S.
• Baggage insurance
Many trip cancellation and interruption policies also provide coverage for lost, damaged, delayed or stolen bags...And this is especially necessary if you're flying overseas and checking bags. Why? Because of a nasty little thing called the Warsaw Convention.. The old Warsaw Convention limits liability to approximately $9.07 per pound for checked baggage and $400 per passenger for unchecked baggage. Do the math. If you're only allowed 44 pounds of baggage as a coach passenger, you're not getting a fat check.
But if you're just flying between U.S. cities and think you have no need for a larger trip cancellation and interruption policy, you may think you are simply covered by the airlines' published limits of liability when it comes to lost, stolen, delayed or damaged bags.
• Non-refundable insurance
Some policies also offer straight coverage if you buy the non-refundable airline ticket and then can't use it and don't want to be hit with the minimum $100 change fee. This runs about $13 per $100 of coverage. An expensive premium, but still worth it if you really think you might have to change your trip once you purchase your ticket.
• Golf travel insurance
Travel Guard provides golf equipment loss, golf equipment delay, golf fee refund. In addition, every Golf Travel Insurance Plan customer will also receive AIG Travel Guard's Golf Concierge Services, which includes golf course recommendations and driving directions, tee time reservations, PGA-Professional referral service and much. If get a hole-in-one, we'll reimburse for the celebratory round of drinks (up to $250) at the clubhouse.
• Adventure/extreme sports travel
In most cases, there are exclusions on basic travel insurance when it comes to adventure travel. That means specifications on how high is the mountain you’re climbing, and how far are you scuba diving. However, third-party travel insurance can offer additional coverage for adventure and extreme sports—even professional sporting events can be covered, but it will cost you.
• Credit card coverage
If you book your trip on a credit card, you may already be covered in many cases. But more often than not, your basic credit card coverage will be limited to flight accident insurance, rental car insurance or limited baggage insurance. Be sure to read your card's terms and conditions, or call your credit card provider's toll-free line for guidance.
• Terrorism tips
Read the policy wording carefully. If war breaks out, or there is a terrorist act, are there clauses that essentially void your policy? Very few policies cover trip cancellation for reasons of any kind. Most policies now include "force majeure" clauses. For example, most policies now still cover trip cancellation if the U.S. State Department issues a travel warning. Also many policies only cover you for your trip if an act of terrorism occurs in the specific country you're traveling to or from. And they set limits on how close an attack has to be to your destination before it goes into effect. You generally must buy the policy before violence erupts to be covered. But almost all policies will not cover any losses caused by war or threat of war.
Understand that most insurance policies won't cover last-minute anxiety. After the Sept. 11 attacks, for example, Travel Guard reimbursed customers who canceled trips because they were afraid to fly. While Travel Guard felt it was the right thing to do, it's unlikely the insurer will do it again. It was the costliest event in the history of that company.
