The Truth about Travel Insurance

You've seen it before. The little "click here" box to purchase travel insurance when you buy a plane ticket.????Do you really need to spend that??extra $33.95 to insure your trip??? Wandering Betty??is here to give you the pros and cons of travel insurance.

There are four types of travel insurance that you can purchase:

• Trip interruption/cancellation insurance
• Flight insurance
• Medical insurance
• Bad weather or ??infectious diseases insurance.

Let's break it down.

Trip interruption/cancellation insurance provides coverage if the event that your trip does not operate, say if your flight gets cancelled, or if your cruise ship doesn't sail.?? It can also cover trip interruption due to illness, injury, deaths or involuntary job loss.?? More comprehensive policies (often with more expensive rates) can also provide coverage if you cancel your trip for any reason, such as an important business conflict,??a family obligation or even if you simply change your mind.?? ??Trip interruption/cancellation insurance rates are generally based on your trip cost.??

Deciding when or if??to buy trip interruption or cancellation insurance will depend on how much your trip costs.?? If your flight is $200, then depending on your fiscal comfortability, you might decide to just forfeit the $200 if something happens.?? If you just paid for a $6,500 custom tour of the Mediterranean??then??trip interruption/cancellation coverage could become very important.??

Check your credit card terms before you buy trip interruption/cancellation insurance from a third party: some credit cards offer trip interruption/cancellation coverage automatically if you purchase the trip on your credit card.??

Flight Insurance, also known as flight accident insurance or travel accident insurance, pays a lump sum in the case of accidental death or certain loss of limbs to your beneficiary or you in the event of a plane accident.?? You can also get common carrier accident coverage, which covers accidents occuring on other forms of transportation such as trains, buses or??subways.