The short answer is yes. If you need an example, keep reading. There are some good reasons that make travel insurance worth it. For one, you can’t see into the future. How do you know what might happen on your trip? For example, if you lost all your personal belongings in a hotel fire, what would happen? Without travel insurance, you won’t be able to recover your property.
Who would ever anticipate their hotel catching fire?
That is exactly what happened to a young woman named Heather in Peru. She landed a month-long gig as a tour guide for an adventure travel agency specializing in community service trips for teenagers. Healther arrived safely and everything was going great, until a fire broke out in the hotel. Unfortunately, she didn’t purchase travel insurance before she left, and most of her belongings were lost.
“My employer recommended a travel insurance package, but between booking flights, packing, and dealing with my job stateside, when it came time to depart, I had totally forgotten to buy health insurance,” Heather said.
Getting ready for a month-long trip requires attending to a lot of important details, and for most people buying supplemental trip insurance isn’t one of those.
“It’s always the one time when we forget to buy insurance, or when we think, ‘What can happen in a month?’ that we find ourselves in trouble,” Heather said. “While I was in Peru, one of the hotels that I was staying at burned to the ground. One minute, our group was stargazing and the next minute we were evacuating our hotel.”
“What we thought was a small kitchen fire turned into a full-blown emergency within minutes,” she said. “Most of us didn’t even have a chance to grab shoes, let alone passports, before evacuating. Luckily, the area where our rooms were located did not completely burn that night. The hotel staff managed to recover our luggage. They entered the rooms and stuffed whatever clothes we had unpacked into our smokey bags. All of my belongings had smoke damage and could have easily been replaced…if I had bought insurance. Luckily everyone in my group was safe, but from then on I vowed never to travel without insurance again,” she said.
A lesson learned and a second opportunity.
After her experience in Peru, Heather decided travel insurance was worth it. As soon as she returned home, Heather, an avid surfer, had a lifetime opportunity to go to Bali. She had always dreamed of surfing the epic reef breaks there.
“For my last surf trip to Bali, Arno (Health Is International) recommended a few different options,” she said. “I ended up choosing World Nomads Health Insurance because they covered damages to my surfboard if the airline were to accidentally damage it,” she said.
Sports exclusions can be frustrating.
When you start looking at the exclusions on health plans, it may seem like YOUR sport is always excluded. Whether its participating in a professional or amateur sports league, mountaineering, paragliding, scuba — you name it — you’re excluded from getting coverage. We offer specific plans by a few select providers who will cover you no matter what sport or hobby you enjoy.
I can help you sort it out.
Browse my website at healthisinternational.com to see what plans we offer, or select Quick Quote to find out how affordable your coverage can be.
“Arno is the most knowledgeable person I know when it comes to travel insurance. He always presents a few options, which is nice when you’re considering insurance based on a budget,” Heather said. “He has always been quick to reply to my questions and made me feel confident selecting a plan that was right for me.”