Six Tips on How to Shop for the Cheapest Travel Insurance

While you spend most of your travel budget on plane tickets, hotel accommodation, restaurant bills, car rentals, and souvenirs you can bring home, you should not disregard the importance of your own protection. This is the reason why you need to buy travel insurance.

But the common misconception that travel insurance is expensive and that you are more likely to survive the trip in one piece has caused much disregard on buying insurance. Because in as much as you would want your trip to be a little under your targeted total expenses, you will completely neglect buying travel insurance. And when you do this, you might be at risk of spending more because you will never know when accidents may strike prior and especially during the trip. That is why, you should allocate a portion of your travel budget to travel insurance.

Now you may ask, "If I have to spend so much on other things, how can I get cheap travel insurance that would not cost too much?"

Shopping for cheap travel insurance can indeed affect your whole budget for the trip but with these 6 following tips, you can have the cheapest travel insurance that covers everything you need.

1. As much as possible, do not buy from travel agents. While they may provide the fastest and easiest way to get you covered, they can offer high insurance cost since they earn commission. They also may not give you discounts and could dictate the coverage of the insurance. In addition, some travel companies offer trips with "free" insurance- but actually not free. The cost of the insurance is included in the total price.

2. Instead, buy cheap travel insurance directly from insurance brokers or insurance companies. They often charge insurance at half the price compared to travel agents and could offer the cheapest travel insurance.

3. Check on several cheap travel insurance companies and select one that you think can give you the best coverage. Select your coverage, consider your destination, duration, type of activities you will perform during the trip, and the probable risk. From these, you can decide if you will get emergency medical expenses, emergency evacuation, personal property coverage (lost, delayed, or damage luggage), document coverage, trip cancellation, and others.

For example, if you go to a place where you will spend most of your time doing outdoor activities, which you think would give you better chances of encountering accidents, you can get emergency medical expenses coverage. Or, if you go to a place where there is a risk of the trip being cancelled because of local crisis, you might opt to get trip cancellation or travel interruption coverage. Furthermore, if you are not sure about the status of your air provider, you can opt to buy for bankruptcy protection. The key is, you should know how to prioritise your need according to your situation.

4. If you go on trips more than once a year, it is advisable to get annual travel insurance. You can save more on this than buying travel insurance on every trip.

5. If you have home insurance, you should first check if they have any provisions for out of the country trips. In this way, you can get the "avoid redundancy" and get the cheapest travel insurance possible.

6. Finally, never hesitate to ask for discounts. There are several insurance companies who are willing to slash a portion of their travel insurance price.

Dean Shainin