NOTE: We are not insurance agents and can not recommend or give insurance recommendations.

Whenever you travel, we recommend having insurance.  And not just travel insurance, but make sure you have your health / medical insurance information with you, too.

For travel insurance there are a few options. Resorts like Sandals and Beaches, they offer travel insurance when you book the trip. It doesn’t have to be purchased right then, you can add it to the booking any time prior to final payment. But don’t forget to add it before you make that final payment! This insurance covers a lot of things that may go wrong on a trip, but you need to look at what it covers to make sure it has everything you need and want.

Some airlines (like American, but NOT Southwest) off insurance when you purchase your flight. With American, the insurance is through Allianz. It’s pretty cheap but covers most everything. We’ve found this to be good insurance, they make it easy to file a claim, and we’ve never had a claim rejected. They don’t seem to play the usual insurance company games where they reject the claim and make you appeal the rejection before they really even consider accepting it, just hoping that you’ll give up and go away.  Allianz also has a very easy, online, claim form to use.

Another option would be to buy travel insurance directly from an insurance company. That would require some research for a policy you like, and comparison shopping between companies. We’ve looked at Allianz, and buy a policy directly from them is more expensive than getting it through the airline at the time of booking.

One more option would be to buy a policy that would cover all your travels for a fixed amount of time, usually a year. These are usually pretty expensive and if you don’t travel much they probably wouldn’t be worth it.

For health insurance, make sure you take your insurance ID card. If you’re on Medicare, don’t just take your government issued Medicare card, it’s worthless. Take the card that was issued by the actual company that handles your Medicare plan.

Having proof of insurance may make is so a doctor or hospital can file directly with the insurance company. If you don’t have your card, they may make you pay in advance for all your treatment (we know, it happened to us!). In either case, make sure you have a credit card with “room” on it. These bills add up fast and can be thousands of dollars. I don’t know if they would actually refuse treatment if you don’t have insurance or a card to charge prior to treatment, but that wouldn’t be a good time to test it.