Travel Insurance

As you can see from my Tripit homepage, (see my post on must-have travel apps), we have a lot of trips coming up as well as in the past. I would be remiss if I didn't comment on travel insurance.

Now, everyone knows about the insurance offers you get bugged about every time you buy a plane ticket or rent a car. But here's a better idea: skip all those and get year-long travel insurance covering everything. There are a couple of companies that offer long-term travel insurance, so do your homework and figure out what you can afford. Why do you need travel insurance? Because things happen and your plans change. The weather can ruin flights, you could get sick or injured far from home, travel delays can leave you stranded or you may need help right away.

I was contemplating this last January since I figured the first of the new year would be a good time to open a policy. I was glad I did because our next trip to Portland got canceled due to a bad storm on the West Coast. I had booked a non-refundable hotel through Alaska Airlines that I could not cancel. I was able to open a claim on my new insurance and they paid me back. I also had baggage damage on another trip that I was able to get reimbursed for (that story will be for another post after I have fully recovered from the experience...)

I chose to go with Allianz. They have several levels of year-long coverage and I picked the one I could afford that gave us the most coverage. It has trip cancellation and interruption, emergency medical, baggage loss or delay, rental car coverage, emergency transport, and more. As I said, I have already used it twice. It has definitely paid for itself. Allianz has a great resource on their site. Here is an article on how travel insurance works and how it does not. I cannot recommend insurance enough, especially if your climber is doing a lot of traveling. Safe travels!

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