Insurance gets a boost

Waiting at Newark, 2008. I wouldn't want to spend days there.

The volcano eruption and subsequent disruption put a spotlight on travel insurance. Here's a recent New York Times report on the subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/world/europe/20trip.html?ref=global-home

Even though I cringe every time I pay for it, we always take out a policy when traveling internationally and strongly recommend it to clients. While packaged vacations may offer insurance as a benefit, if you are doing your own arrangements as we do you have to research and buy on your own. I've used these two comparison sites, which help you pick what's best for your needs:

www.insuremytrip.com
www.squaremouth.com

Typically the payout is about half of the total trip cost, although that can vary (with the premium). But chances are you have committed only about that much in deposits, so it's not a bad deal.

A big variable is health and evacuation. Most domestic insurance plans do not cover you overseas and the add-on to trip insurance isn't that much. One key point - on most policies, if you buy within 15 days of making your first trip reservation you will be covered for pre-existing conditions. That's important for people like me.

Another tip: It can be cheaper to add rental car insurance to one of these policies than to buy it from the rental company. Of course, many credit cards include insurance if you pay with them.

The bottom line is, check your existing coverages, read the fine print and once you buy carry the documentation with you. And if a policy is cheaper or more expensive, there likely is a reason.