by Jimi S. George

Tourism is often viewed as one of the more volatile industries as it can be affected in so many different ways yet we all risk our hard earned each year when we book that trip. Some people either don’t think of getting travel insurance or they just don’t want to whilst others may think they are in perfect health plus physically active so what could go wrong and if something does, they will deal with it then.

However, this attitude does not really make sense when you consider the potential problems that can befall any vacation it is amazing and the cost of this protection is a miserly 5 to 10 percent of the total cost of the vacation package. Not only could you be prevented from traveling through accident or illness but even worse, they could happen when you were on vacation and in which case you could either lose the deposit or be forced to pay local medical bills.

Remember that if you cancel at the last minute for any reason you will lose all the money you have paid out with no recourse. Travel insurance cover will allow for situations like this along with emergency repatriation, medical expenses, stolen or lost luggage, airline delays and many more incidents that can become expensive.

There are occasions where a situation prevents us from taking our holidays right at the last minute where normally all money paid to that point can be forfeit but travel insurance can prevent this happening. A good travel insurance plan should provide trip cancellation coverage for the traveler’s vacation investment and the insurance company should reimburse the traveler for all pre-paid, nonrefundable expenses.

Most trip cancellation plans also include refunds when a trip is interrupted and will include other trips that deposits have been made for. With terrorism on the increase, this is a section of travel insurance to watch out for as some policies will only cover for acts of terrorism when you are in a foreign country.

Although it has been mentioned that the cost of travel insurance is usually under 10 percent, this can vary and the biggest factor to this s the age of the traveler. Always a fear with people is whether the person they have booked the vacation with will still be operating when they travel but if you have arranged your travel insurance within 15 days of paying the deposit you should be able to claim back all costs if they cease trading.

You may often find that your credit card will cover the user for certain areas of their travel which will therefore not be needed as part of the travel insurance. There is nothing strange in this situation but is surprising just how many people do not even check their insurance plans to see what they are insured for.

Be sure to check the fine print for hidden limitations on these existing policies and after researching your current polices, it may seem you are already covered on the surface, but the fine print could limit certain conditions, circumstances, situations or locations.

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