Travel Insurance- Do You Buy It?

Depends on the trip. I bought it for both of my Iceland trips, my Baltic Sea cruise and my trip to Tanzania.

OMG I am hyperventilating at the idea of NOT buying travel insurance!! Especially if I were to travel to the US. OMG I wouldn't want to risk bankruptcy if I had an accident and didn't have travel insurance.

Always always get travel insurance. 

For my last overseas trip, and my next one in August, I got 'free' travel insurance through my bank. The conditions were that I had to pay for any part of my trip (airfares, accomodation etc) to the value of $500 per person on my credit card, and I was eligible for free insurance. Most banks offer a similar thing.

We buy it. On our last vacation we booked through Delta vacations and got the insurance that they offered. It didn’t cost that much. We just considered it to be part of the cost of the trip.

                          My credit card also offers this trip insurance.  It also offers car insurance.  I NEVER EVER give out my personal car insurance whenever I rent a car, either in Canada or the USA.  I don't drive in Mexico or other International. 

I had a rental car that was bashed in a parking lot in Huntington Beach many years ago.  Big dent.  I called my credit card insurance and told them it was a hit & run in a parking lot.  I took photos and filled out the downloaded forms regarding this collision.  Everything was handled between Enterprise Rental and my Insurance company.  I was cc'd on the paperwork but I didn't pay a penny. The damage was over $6,000.00 US$.  As a Canadian, with the exchange rate, it would have been a lot of money.  Since I didn't give out my own car insurance, nothing was noted on my car insurance. 

This is a premium card with an annual fee of $145./year.  This fee is waived due to all of the business and longevity with this bank.  I have been banking with this bank for 54 years, consecutively and even worked for this bank for over 10 years.  I have a very old account number that has grandfathered many benefits.

I refuse to even consider contributing to a Go Fund Me helping out people who didn't *think* of travel insurance.  I am sick and tired of the sad sob stories where people have the money to travel but are too cheap to buy travel insurance.  Just like tipping at a restaurant, if you can afford the base price of the meal, you can afford the tip (this seems to be the way the peas seem to think on that topic and I believe it is applicable here).               

Anything can happen anywhere and usually if you don't have the insurance, you will probably need it.  

Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

For trips within the US, usually no. International trips, we started to, especially if my mom travels with us.

Yikes! We are traveling in 11 days. Internationally. Our first time. The people we are going with travel a lot and never get insurance so neither did we!

Any suggestions where I can get last minute health insurance?

I got appendicitis in Japan before I was on kokumin hoken. That cost about $5000 and insurance paid everything.

go online and also contact a travel agent or aaa if you have it or check if your credit card offers it. allianz is a big vendor. but there are other ones online.

My credit card travel insurance is underwritten by Allianz.

I haven’t and it’s stupid not to especially international. It’s definitely something I will probably do for now on if international.

I'm another one who is astounded anyone would travel without insurance!
20 years ago my Dad was active, slim & fit and didn't have any health issues...they went on vacation to Europe and on his second day there, in Germany he had a heart attack. They weren't near a major city so he was transferred by ambulance to a bigger hospital, he had 3 stents placed spent 3 days in a cardiac ICU then got transferred to cardiac rehab for 2 weeks.
The bill back then for everything came to $44,000, and it was all covered by his $120 travel insurance.

I don't understand why anyone would take that risk.

Even when I was under 30 things happened that made me glad to have it, including being involved in a car accident in the US which resulted in a hospital stay and surgery for one person in our group, and then an upgrade to business class flights home as they couldn't sit in economy with their leg injuries. Across all my travels I've had several incidents where having travel insurance saved our butts. In various trips I've taken we've had luggage stolen, one person had heart issues and was airlifted to hospital, another trip someone caught pneumonia and spent a week in hospital resulting in parts of our trip being cancelled, and cancelled flights leaving us stuck in Cuba for an additional two days resulting in our next flights being missed and having to cancel accommodation.

I cannot imagine not having travel insurance, and having had all these things happen on trips I've been on, I wouldn't travel internationally without it.

Also add me to the list of those shocked that anyone would travel without insurance and agree that it is very foolish. I’ve never travelled abroad without insurance - over 40 yrs now.


Due to my current health issues, my annual travel insurance is quite high, but I pay it and travel. Wouldn’t dream of travelling without it.

Yes. It is usually a reasonably small fee and would open additional resources if something happened.

And since my Girl Scout trip abroad where we were with other non scout people for a travel tour, And a man had a heart attack and the insurance could have really helped if he & his family had the travel insurance. Since then I actively look for it to buy.