Travelling is arguably the best thing that I’ve ever done. I could wax lyrical about it for hours – in fact, if you’ve met me you’ll have heard me talk about it. I think I love telling travel stories almost as much as I love travelling! Have I told you the one about when I got severe food poisoning in Peru and was almost hospitalised? Or the one where my flight out of the USA was cancelled due to bad weather and I had to scramble and pay for a night in a hotel? You don’t need to be a long-term traveller or a digital nomad for things like this to happen. You could be on your first ever holiday and things could go wrong. It’s life. And yet I’ve met so many people who never think of buying travel insurance or who tell me they don’t need it.
So what do you do if something goes wrong and you need medical attention? Or your flight is cancelled late at night? Or your luggage is lost and you have nothing to wear? You’re not saving money by not buying insurance if you end up spending it on hotels and doctors or buying new clothes or another flight. I’ve got 5 good reasons for you why it’s worth including in your travel preparations.
1. Needing medical attention
Perhaps the most common and obvious one when it comes to why it’s worth buying travel insurance. It applies no matter where you are travelling to, but especially if you’re going to the USA where medical costs can run into the thousands of dollars. You can take every precaution possible and still something could go wrong.
That food poisoning story in Peru? I was part of a tour group and we ate at a busy restaurant. Someone somewhere did not practise good hygiene and two of us fell ill. The other person was hospitalised due to dehydration but I narrowly escaped that. I did spend two days in bed on dry crackers and rehydration drinks and it took me a couple of weeks to get back to normal. Insurance covered all those medical bills and the extra nights in the hotel.
2. Missing out on booked excursions
But it wasn’t the medical bills that were my main problem. The reason I was with that tour group was because I was going to be walking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. I could barely make it to the end of the corridor, though, I was so weak! Without travel insurance, I would have lost around £500 for the hike tour costs. With travel insurance, I paid the excess of £75 and had the rest refunded to me.
So while the medical costs were comparatively low, I would have been out of pocket on the extra accommodation, food and drink, and the cancelled Inca Trail trip. Even in countries with a lower cost of living, things can add up quickly.
3. Cancelled flights
That flight cancellation out of the USA? It was actually the flight that was taking me to my connecting flight back to Europe. So I was grounded until the following day. And if you don’t know this, airlines don’t have to pay for accommodation if the cancellation is beyond their control. So one bad thunderstorm (or in my case, a series of them) could ground you and you’d have to sort out your own overnight accommodation. Travel insurance covered that cost for me. Yes, I had to pay the excess, but that was a lot cheaper than a last-minute airport hotel room. (And it included breakfast, so one less extra thing to pay for.)
On that trip, I was flying with major airline, so they rebooked me on a flight the following day. But another thing to consider is flying with budget airlines or having to do self-transfers. One thing going wrong with one leg or a low-cost airline flight and you’re on your own and loading up your credit card to get on to the next flight.
4. Theft and loss
Have I told you the story of the stolen phone? It wasn’t mine, thankfully. But I was sitting having a beer with fellow travellers at a bar in Hanoi. Now, if you’ve been to Hanoi, you’ll know the big roundabout. The one that has no painted lines, is a free-for-all (cars, motorbikes, pedestrians), and there are 20 motorbikes whizzing past for every car. We could only watch as a motorbike drove past a pedestrian on their phone and grabbed it out of their hands. Replacing a smartphone is not cheap. But any traveller will tell you that it’s their lifeline. We book accommodation and travel on it, keep in touch with friends and family, read, use it for social media…
What about the story of the lost luggage? Have I told you that one? Which time do you want to know about? Theft and loss are sadly all too common, at home and while travelling. When you’re at home it may not be as much of an inconvenience. But when you’re travelling and you have no clean underwear or your cards have been stolen and you have no cash, it’s a problem. And we travel with so much tech gear (laptops, tablets, cameras, smartphones) that replacing even one of those could prove very expensive.
5. One for the nomads
There is one other consideration for longer-term nomads: health checks and doctors visits. If you are on the move without a home base (or you don’t return often), you will still need or want to visit a doctor at some point. More and more insurers are realising this and including packages that allow this sort of cover.
Another thing is being able to buy insurance when you are already on the road. Not many are offering this yet, but there a few that do. And it’s important when you are travelling long-term and want to have travel insurance.
Get covered
From one traveller to another, do yourself a favour and consider buying travel insurance. There are tons of options out there and it’s worth spending a little time finding one that’s right for you.
I’ve used a few different insurers but have settled on SafetyWing in the last few years. They have two options: The Essential cover is ideal for travellers or shorter trips and covers all your basic needs. The Complete cover works for longer-term travel and digital nomads, offering routine healthcare options as well. You can buy either from anywhere in the world, not just your home country, unlike most insurance.
See you on the road!