Pack Your Bags Travel & Tours, Inc.

There are hundreds of circumstances that could cause you to cancel your trip, return home early or force you to seek emergency medical treatment while traveling.

To demonstrate the importance of purchasing travel insurance, and emergency travel services, here are 10 common examples of what could go wrong.

1) It's 10 p.m. and you and your immediate family arrive at the airport for a connecting flight, only to find that your flight has been cancelled. Who can assist you with finding new flights to get everyone home?

2) Your bag was lost with your insulin inside. You need help to locate your bag as soon as possible and have your emergency prescription filled. Who do you call?

                                                   
3) Your first visit to Europe, and your passport and wallet are stolen. Where do you turn for assistance in obtaining emergency cash, and how will you get your passport replaced?

                                                   
4) You're involved in an accident and adequate medical treatment is not available. Who will help coordinate a medical evacuation?

                                                   
5) If your sister-in-law becomes seriously ill and you must cancel your trip, what happens to your non-refundable deposits or pre-payments?

6) You arrive in Jamaica and your luggage doesn't. If it's lost, who will help you find it? If it's delayed who will reimburse you for covered necessities? If it's stolen, who will reimburse you for its contents?

7) Your cruiseline, airline or tour operator goes bankrupt. Who will pay for your non-refundable expenses? Who is able to assist in getting you to your destination.

8) You're walking down a street in Rio and twist your ankle. Who is able to assist you in finding an English-speaking physician?

9) Three weeks before your scheduled arrival, a terrorist incident occurs in the city to which you are planning to visit. Who will reimburse you if you want to cancel your trip?

10) You are at a beach resort in North Carolina, and you are forced to evacuate due to a hurricane which has made your resort uninhabitable. Who can assist you in being evacuated? Who will reimburse you for your lost vacation investment?



Part of travelers’ responsibility when it comes to educating themselves about travel insurance includes learning how and when their other travel partners may or may not offer them assistance when a trip doesn’t go as planned.

For example, you may learn that airlines aren’t obligated to do anything when your flights are delayed.When the airlines are the ones at fault, they may offer some assistance, but they’re not bound by law or duty to do so.

There are a number of similar misconceptions that travel insurance can guard against. Insurance comes packaged together with specific coverage benefits – the type and amount will range based on the provider and the package selected – that fill gaps where your travel plans may be exposed to a number of threats.

What kind of threats? Take lost baggage. Sure with the rise of bag fees, airlines are seeing fewer and fewer bags checked. And they’re doing a better and better job of keeping tabs on them. Still, lost and damaged bags are the No. 2 complaint issued to the Department of Transportation. Additionally, while domestic airlines safely transport more than 99 percent of all luggage, international carriers still lag behind.

But a lost, damaged or even stolen luggage benefit is just one small benefit of most travel insurance offerings. Others may include:

• Trip Cancellation Protection: This is the big one, and includes reimbursement for non-refundable trip payments and deposits.
• Trip Interruption Protection: Sometimes trips start on time and end prematurely due to forces of nature and other circumstances beyond your control. This benefit includes reimbursement for unused costs and transportation costs to return home.
• 24-Hour Hotline Assistance: While this doesn’t come with a dollar amount, getting real-time help when you’re in a pickle is invaluable. Especially if you don’t speak the native tongue. This can include the arrangement of evacuations for medical emergencies, pre-trip assistance, etc.
• Coverage for financial default: What if the tour operator for your upcoming family vacation stops answering your calls? And then the line is disconnected and the company is out of business. Travel insurance may be your most reliable means of financial recourse.