I’ve been traveling for a long time now, and I like to think I’m something of a pro. As time has gone on, I’ve learned more, and learned how to travel smarter and to travel better. One of the major lessons I’ve learned through the years is the importance of travel insurance.

What is travel insurance? Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like: insurance for a trip. This means that you pay a bit of money, and you’re covered in the event that something goes wrong. Good travel insurance will cover medical expenses and emergency assistance, trip cancellation, trip delay, and baggage delay/theft. If any of these things happen, you can (in theory) claim your expenses back.

Travel insurance is insanely important. And it makes me sick that when I first started traveling, I was too naïve and stupid to look into it properly. Here are three personal situations and examples of when I’ve needed travel insurance in the past.

Trip Delay: Flight Delay (Christmas 2017)

I went home for Christmas in 2017, the first time I’d been home in 14 months since I moved to the UK in October 2016. I was so excited to see everyone and go to all my favorite places. On the flight back, we were set to fly from Minneapolis to Boston, and then Boston to London Heathrow. There was pretty severe weather in Boston, and our flight to London got cancelled. The airline never bothered to tell me that my second flight was cancelled (which I’m obviously not still bitter about), and when I called to rebook our flight, the next flight we could get wasn’t for TWO MORE DAYS.

This might sound like a small thing, but we both had jobs we needed to get back to. We had specifically planned this flight back around our work dates. Luckily, we were staying with my parents, so we didn’t need to pay for extra accommodation, or more days with a rental car. We kept all of our receipts for food expenses. And once we got back we were able to (eventually) claim these expenses through the airline. The airline is (generally) responsible for covering these expenses in a situation like this.

But they wouldn’t cover any additional travel expenses due to the flight delay. We had also bought train tickets from London to York, where we live in the UK, to coincide with our original flight’s arrival date. We had to buy new train tickets, a cost of £40.05, to accommodate our new flight back. Thanks to travel insurance, we were able to claim the cost of those tickets back from travel insurance! Trip delay is one big reason to get travel insurance for any trip. (Oh yeah, and despite the fact that the airline couldn’t be bothered to notify me when they cancelled my flight, they sent me emails AND texts asking me to do a post-flight survey… sigh.)

Trip Cancellation: Car Crash (January 2019)

Unfortunately, this January Adam was involved in a really serious car crash, resulting in a broken leg, a broken ankle, and a lot of soft tissue damage to his hip. At the time of writing, he’s only just now been able to get off of crutches and stop wearing the boot. As he wasn’t medically fit to travel, we had to cancel our trip to Greece this February. He was also supposed to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in April, and obviously that won’t be happening either.

We had already paid for quite a few things for our trip to Greece: flights with both Wizz Air and Ryanair, car parking at Luton Airport, a deposit for our first few nights in Athens, and a deposit and our accommodation in Santorini. Luckily, we were able to get a full refund of the deposit for Athens, a refund for the car parking, and a refund for Santorini accommodation. We were able to receive some money back from Wizz Air.

With travel insurance, we should be able to claim for pretty much everything that we’ve had to cancel. Anything that we can’t get all our money back, we can claim. We’ll be able to claim for our Ryanair flights, the amount we’ve lost for the Wizz Air flights, and our deposit for Santorini. This is still a work in progress—but we should be able to claim for several hundred £££ from what we’ve had to cancel. We should also be able to claim for the portion of Mr. Away With Maja’s flights for Kilimanjaro that won’t be refunded.

Without travel insurance, we’d be out hundreds of pounds. Sure, some parts of our trips are refundable, which is great! But our flights aren’t. Budget airlines are especially difficult in issuing refunds. While yes, it sucks big time having to cancel a dream trip, the silver lining is that hopefully we can (in theory) get all our money back, and go sometime later when Adam is well and fit to travel.

You never know what can happen. Death or serious injury of a family member or traveling companion is never something you want to think about—but it can happen. It is so much better to be safe rather than sorry, and to have travel insurance that covers cancellation.

Medical Expenses: Russia (June 2014)

Now this is a bit of an embarrassing story. When I finished my study abroad in Nottingham, I went on a solo trip to Russia for two weeks. It was the trip of a lifetime, and I lived out some of my greatest dreams. But I also ended up getting really sick, and needed to seek medical help.

Unfortunately for me, I was also an idiot and didn’t understand much about travel insurance. I had bought travel insurance through my college for that study abroad, to cover me on all my trips throughout Europe. Coverage started on the day I was due to enter the UK, 9/9/2013. It ended on 6/8/2014, which I assumed was written European style, as that was just a few days before my student visa expired. Well, I was wrong. My travel insurance ended on June 8^th, and I ended up at a doctor’s office in St. Petersburg on June 14^th, six days after the insurance expired.

Of course, this is a really stupid and embarrassing mistake. It was SO easily avoided. I could have made one phone call and sorted it out. But I’d never gotten sick on any of my other travels, and I’d never even thought about the travel insurance. Until, of course, I needed it. This taught me my lesson of why I needed travel insurance—why everyone needs travel insurance. And I learned that lesson the hard way.

I got a really bad UTI (and another infection from those antibiotics as well, which was even more fun). And after my first round of antibiotics that I took in Moscow obviously weren’t working, I knew I needed to see a doctor to get the correct antibiotic prescribed. So off I went to see Dr. Andrei at an English-speaking clinic, who took some blood tests and gave me some prescriptions.

It was in the waiting room, after I’d had the blood test, that I found out my travel insurance expired 6 days before. The dates were not written European style like I’d thought, but normal American style with the month first. And I’d need to pay for everything up front. The total cost of my doctor’s visit and tests was about $450. And I had to pay for that up front before I left.

This is also a really lucky story in the fact that I had parents at home who were gracious enough to transfer that money to my account immediately when I told them. I wouldn’t have to worry about being able to afford my accommodation or food, since they could help me. Not everyone has that though, and that’s important.

Had I have had travel insurance, I most likely wouldn’t have had to pay for anything up front. The travel insurance woman I originally spoke to on the phone in the office said that as long as I wouldn’t need a hospital visit (I just needed the right antibiotics!!!), they would cover it there and then in the doctor’s office. But I was stupid, and didn’t have valid travel insurance.

Don’t be like me!!! Get travel insurance for your trip. If you need to see a doctor for any reason—whether you get a UTI like me, you fall and break your leg, or you’re involved in any kind of unexpected accident—good travel insurance covers medical expenses. You’d be able to get all your money back.

(And just to throw a curveball… I actually applied for reimbursement for these expenses through my US insurance at home, Healthpartners. And somehow, for some unknown reason, they reimbursed all my expenses besides a $35 co-pay. My mom still talks about it since no one could believe they actually reimbursed me for it—that just does not happen. But that is a one in a million shot, and one you shouldn’t count on. Which is why you need travel insurance.)

How to Buy Travel Insurance, and What Kind

There are two main options for travel insurance. You can get an annual policy, or you can get single trip insurance. I’ve had both and it depends on what type of traveling you’ll be doing.

If you’re a frequent traveler and go on international trips more than 3-4 times per year, I’d recommend an annual policy. Get it and (hopefully) forget about it and you’ll never have to use it. An annual policy covers you for trips taken within the year. So you can take as many trips as you want, and you’ll still be covered! This is great because you don’t have to worry about purchasing travel insurance, you can just plan all your trips like normal and if something happens and you need to make a claim, you can.

If you’re not as frequent a traveler aka travel fewer than 3-4 times per year, OR if you are going on a big (1-month plus) trip within one calendar year, I’d recommend single trip insurance. If you don’t go away frequently, there’s no point in buying travel insurance to last you for the full year. It would be cheaper to just purchase travel insurance for your individual trips. This is also the case if you’re going on a one BIG trip in a year. For example, I bought single trip insurance for my big 3-month trip from March-June 2016. I didn’t need an annual policy, since I wouldn’t be traveling abroad after that (until I moved to England, that is). Single trip insurance is also good since you may need different types of insurance on different types of holidays. For example, when Adam did the Everest Base Camp Trek, he needed specific insurance to cover high-altitude trekking up to 6,000 meters, and to cover helicopter evacuations.

I am currently insured through my annual policy with my UK bank account with Nationwide bank. Adam and I have a joint Flexplus bank account with Nationwide. We pay a small fee every month (£13) that covers worldwide travel insurance for both of us, free cash withdrawals abroad, and insurance for our mobile phones. If you’re a UK resident and you travel a lot, I HIGHLY recommend switching to this bank. With how much we travel, we make back the money we spend on the monthly account fees just in the international cash withdrawals alone. This accounts to £156 total (£78 per person) for annual travel insurance, as much international cash withdrawals as we want, and our phone insurance. It’s a bargain.

World Nomads offers coverage for more than 150 adventure activities as well as emergency medical, lost luggage, trip cancellation and more. My 3-month trip in 2016 (to both Europe and Africa) as a US resident cost me $206 USD. Which is a real bargain considering the cost for normal insurance in the US!!! World Nomads also have different options for more adventurous types of holidays—for example, you can specifically insure certain activities like bungee jumping, backpacking or hiking at higher altitudes, or white-water rafting.

I always have travel insurance on all of my trips. The saying goes, “if you can’t afford travel insurance, you can’t afford to travel.” And it’s absolutely true. Regardless of where in the world you’ll be traveling, or what exactly you’ll be doing on your trip, get yourself covered. Travel insurance is a necessary component for any trip! Learn from my mistakes—and make sure you get travel insurance for your next trip! You can purchase World Nomads travel insurance through my affiliate link here at no extra cost to you—thank you for your support!

Have you ever needed to use travel insurance before?!