Many young travelers I’ve talked to (people usually in their 20’s or 30’s) often tell me they don’t really need to purchase travel insurance before they head out on overseas adventures. Travel insurance, they’ll state quite candidly, is something for older folks like their parents or grandparents, people more likely to trip and fall on Madrid’s cobblestone streets or have a heart attack while touring the Louvre. But, while there’s much less chance of having a heart attack when you’re 30 than when you’re 70, there are also many sound, common-sense reasons to pay the few dollars more to protect your travel investment…and yourself.
Here are a few to carefully consider:
- You may encounter any of many common travel-related issues that have nothing to do with your age or health. These can include a delayed flight that causes you to miss a critical (and perhaps non-refundable) connection on your trip, a natural disaster such as a hurricane, or even a boss who says that you must cancel your vacation to concentrate on a big new project. In all these cases, you can recover all or part of the financial losses you incur if you’re insured.
- If you have young children or elderly parents who get sick, you might need to cancel all or part of your trip. They call many of today’s young couples “the sandwich generation” for good reason. Often, they have both young children and aging parents to look after; they’re “sandwiched” in between. And, if anything happens to any of the children or parents, and the couple has to cancel all or part of their vacation to address the need, then the couple can also lose a major investment. The right travel insurance plan will pay for the cost of a cancelled vacation. And, if you are already on vacation, it will pay for the cost of returning home on short notice and the unused part of a vacation.
- You might be injured, and the cost of a major medical evacuation can be extremely high. While younger travelers tend to be healthier than their older counterparts, many adventurous young travelers love to take part in strenuous—and potentially risky—physical activities. If you are injured outside the U.S., your existing health care insurance almost never covers you. And, if you are in an exotic location, anywhere from Bora Bora to Patagonia to Zambia, the cost of a full-scale medical evacuation back to the U.S. typically runs between $50,000 and $100,000. (Yes, those numbers are correct.) Often young people and couples have not had the time to amass a large savings, and the cost of paying for this kind of service can be—and often is—devastating. Again, the right insurance coverage will take care of these costs. For more information on this subject, you might want to check out this article.
- If you’re young, travel insurance costs much less. Another reason why travel insurance makes sense for young people traveling abroad is cost: for young people, the rates are significantly lower than they are for older travelers. And yes, even if you’re planning activities that might involve some physical risk, the rates are still low. A young, healthy person taking a $7500 trip, for example, will typically pay only about $200 to get excellent insurance coverage. And that—as we all like to say—is a great deal.
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If you’re a young person planning to travel abroad and want to learn more about the kinds of insurance that best fit your needs and budget, please call or email us. We won’t try to pressure you into buying a policy with us. We’re just happy to help.
