Traveling can be expensive and if a situation arises, costs can add up. Nick Ewen, senior editor at The Points Guy, joined Cheddar News to explain what travel insurance can cover and when you should purchase it.

<div class="block">Traveling can be expensive and if a situation arises, costs can add up. Nick Ewen, senior editor at The Points Guy, joined Cheddar News to explain what travel insurance can cover and when you should purchase it.</div>

Stretching Your Dollar

Stretching Your Dollar: What to Know About Travel Insurance

Well, traveling can be expensive and if things go wrong costs can really add up, that's where travel insurance comes in. But do you really need it in all circumstances to give us the ins and outs of travel insurance? We've got Nick you in a senior editor at The Point Sky and Nick a very popular topic. What does standard travel insurance usually cover? Well, when you talk about standard travel insurance, normally that uh it refers to kind of a comprehensive travel insurance policy and that covers a wide variety of what ifs it covers maybe a delay or a cancellation on your flight. It covers you if you need to cancel in advance because of a covered reason like a medical concern. Uh It could cover medical expenses. Um So there are a lot of things that are typically covered, but uh there are a lot of things that are covered on your credit card. So you may not always need to purchase a separate travel insurance policy from a third party provider. Ok. Very good to know if you are covered. Does it usually cover you or your entire party? It depends on the individual policy. Generally, if you, uh when it comes to credit card protections, it will generally cover you as the primary card holder plus your immediate family traveling with you. When you purchase independent travel insurance, it will oftentimes ask you how many travelers you want to cover. Some do automatically include coverage for Children under the age of 18. And really, I always recommend if you're traveling with a family to go ahead and cover all travelers unless the unlikely scena that there's a single person who, you know, would potentially have a medical issue that would prevent them from covering. But the rest of the group is going to continue on the trip. That's really the only time that you would want to have just independent travel insurance for one person. But again, it depends and it's so important to read the policy to know exactly who is covered and what the limits on those coverage amounts are for each individual traveler on the policy, right? Ok. So when does it make sense to get travel insurance for the group? So there are a couple of scenarios where I think travel insurance is a no brainer. Number one, if you have a really complicated trip that has multiple destinations, multiple flights, you're going to be stopping potentially changing airlines on your way to a final destination. Uh And the other time is if you have something that's really expensive, a trip that has a lot of nonrefundable uh prepaid expenses where if you wound up to cancel the trip, you wouldn't be able to absorb that financial pain. Uh in those situations, I strongly encourage you to get travel insurance and to get it as soon as possible. After confirming the trip, you don't even need to have your final payment. You can actually confirm it as soon as you make your first payment towards an eligible eligible trip and then you're covered for the entire time leading up to the actual departure. What does travel insurance usually not cover that? Our viewers need to know about. One of the most important things that is not covered is if you simply decide you don't want to go. We unfortunately saw this a lot in 2020 2021 with the different surges of COVID-19. A lot of travelers said, you know what I don't feel like traveling because I don't think it's safe. Generally, a disinclination to take a trip is not going to be covered if you cancel ahead of time. And then there are also some other ones like preexisting medical conditions. There are some waivers and policies you may be eligible for though oftentimes traveling to a war zone as well as engaging in some adventure activities like skiing off the main published trails at a ski resort activities like that are generally not going to result in coverage, especially if you ultimately wind up injuring yourself, doing one of those kind of unsanctioned activities ok. So if travel insurance is right for you, what are the dos and the dots when it comes to picking the right insurance option? So I hate to say this, but you've got to read the policies as you're out there looking at the different options for you. It's critical to know what's covered and most importantly, what's not covered so that you're prepared and you're ready to submit a claim if it comes to that. But you really need to read the ins and outs of the different policies that you're considering. Uh, and the other thing to do is to do your research on whatever credit card you either have used for the trip or you're planning to use to book a trip. We of course, love our travel credit cards here at the Point Sky and a lot of popular ones, even ones that don't have huge annual fees do offer a number of protections like medical coverage or trip cancellation or interruption insurance or baggage delay protection. So you definitely want to look at those before committing to a policy that would might over cover you when you already have those protections with a card that you have in your wallet and that you used for the trip. What's the easiest way to check if your credit card covers you when it comes to travel insurance? The best thing to do is to go directly to the issuer's website. Uh, you can put in the name of your card and then add benefits guide into your favorite search engine that will oftentimes bring up the full PDF that will go through the nuances of the policy. Some of the credit card issuers don't make these available online, but you can log into your online account and request your guide to benefits whenever you want. Of course, when you initially get a credit card, you get that mailing and that thick magazine that gives you all the ins and outs. Very few of us keep that a lot of them are online, but you do as a credit card holder have access to all of that. Sometimes you just need to request it online and then again, look through and see what's covered, but most importantly, what's not covered. So you can make a decision about whether it's worth adding a third party independent policy. Are there ways to find good deals, Nick, one of the best things to do is to use a marketplace, uh a place like insure my trip where you can really compare across a wide variety of different policies. Now, of course, if you've had good experience with a single provider before, like a IG or alliances, feel free to go directly to them. But I whenever I'm looking at purchasing independent travel insurance for a really expensive or complicated trip, I will always start at a marketplace to look at different options and try to identify which is going to be the best fit. What the inclusions are. Oftentimes, there will be slight variations in terms of the dollar amounts for different protections. Uh So you definitely want to do your research and, and compare and then pick the one that's going to offer the best combination of benefits at the most cost effective rate. Ok. So if you do need to use your travel insurance that you paid for, how do you go about that? So each individual provider has a different portal or a different way to submit your claim. The most important thing and I cannot stress this enough is document everything. Save your receipts, save your email confirmations with your flights and your hotels and any activities you booked. If you have a medical issue, save any and all correspondence with the doctor, any notes that they have any receipts from a hospital admission, anything possible you have to keep. Unfortunately, the claim process is not always easy, it can be lengthy. The more documentation you have to demonstrate that your claim is in fact valid. The easier it will be for the provider to process it.