A friend of mine cancelled a $4,000 trip to Portugal last spring. His father got sick two weeks before departure. He had booked nonrefundable flights and a villa in the Algarve, and he had skipped travel insurance because “nothing ever happens.”
He recovered about $600 of that $4,000. The airline credit covered half the fare eventually, the villa owner kept the deposit, and the rest was gone.
So, is travel insurance worth it? Sometimes. Not always. Here is how I decide, trip by trip, and the math that makes the call easier.
What travel insurance costs
Most comprehensive policies run between 4 and 8 percent of your total prepaid, nonrefundable trip cost. A $3,000 trip means roughly $120 to $240 for coverage. Age matters: expect the higher end of that range if you are over 60, and get quotes early because premiums climb with age.
Cheap “trip protection” plans exist for under $50, but read the fine print. Many of them mostly cover cancellation, not the medical side, and the medical side is where insurance earns its keep.
What you are buying
A solid comprehensive policy bundles four things:
- Trip cancellation and interruption coverage, which refunds prepaid costs if you have to cancel for a covered reason like illness, severe weather, or a death in the family.
- Emergency medical coverage abroad, typically $50,000 to $500,000.
- Medical evacuation, which pays to fly you home if local hospitals cannot treat you.
- Baggage coverage, usually capped at $1,000 to $3,000.
That third item is the one people underestimate. A medical flight from Europe back to the United States can run past $50,000. Regular health insurance often does not cover you overseas at all, and Medicare does not cover routine care outside the United States.
When it is worth the money
I buy it in these situations, without much debate:
- The trip is expensive and mostly nonrefundable. Anything over $2,000 in prepaid costs, I insure.
- I am leaving the country. Foreign medical bills and evacuations are the whole reason insurance exists.
- The destination is remote. If getting home from somewhere takes multiple flights or a medevac, coverage matters more.
- I am traveling during hurricane season, booking a cruise, or doing something physically risky.
When I skip it
Domestic weekend trips where the hotel is refundable and the flight was $180? No insurance. If the worst case is losing a couple hundred dollars, self-insure by just accepting that risk.
Booked everything refundable anyway? Skip it. You have already built your own cancellation policy into the itinerary.
One more thing worth checking before you pay your insurer: premium credit cards often include trip delay, cancellation, and lost baggage coverage if you booked the trip on the card. It is rarely as complete as a standalone policy, but it changes the math on cheaper trips.
The step people miss before buying anything
Insurance is the second question. The first question is whether the trip makes sense right now, given whatever is happening at the destination. Advisories change month to month, and a place that was routine last year might be complicated this year.
Before I book, I run the destination through TravelSafe, a free travel safety tool that pulls current advisories, safety scores, and local conditions for every country. Two minutes there tells me whether I need basic coverage or something heavier, or whether I should push the trip to next season entirely.
The verdict
For cheap domestic trips, travel insurance is usually a waste of $40. For expensive international trips, it is some of the cheapest peace of mind you can buy, and the medical and evacuation coverage alone justifies the price.
Quick checklist before your next trip:
- Add up everything prepaid and nonrefundable.
- Check your card benefits so you do not buy duplicate coverage.
- Look at the destination’s current situation, not last year’s blog post.
- Get quotes from two or three providers and compare the medical limits, not just the headline price.
My friend in Portugal would tell you the same thing from a different mood: the policy he did not buy cost him $3,400.