My husband and I are older parents of a teen girl G with autism. We love to travel as a family, creating trips that are both sensory-friendly and fun for our daughter G. Our posts are relevant to all families traveling with children, but we include a little bit more information to help parents anticipate and manage sensory challenges along the way.
We’ve been fortunate in our family travels. We’ve had a few delayed flights and an interesting experience trying to figure out where to buy over the counter cold medicine on a Sunday night in Europe, but no serious emergencies to deal with.
Sometimes travel is as simple as getting in the car and driving to an interesting place close to home. Other trips are booked months in advance, involving plane tickets, hotels, vacation rentals, rental cars, and sometimes, foreign countries.
Insurance gives you financial protection from all kinds of unexpected travel related problems, large and small.
Virtually all US based health insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid, is only valid within the US and Puerto Rico. If you’re taking a cruise, or traveling internationally, you definitely need insurance for emergency health services and possibly medical evacuation.
If your travels are exclusively within the US, you don’t need any medical travel insurance. You may choose to purchase travel insurance in case you cancel your trip for health or family reasons, or if bad weather either delays your trip or cuts it short.
If you only need to insure one aspect of your trip - a flight, a cruise, a hotel - it’s fine to do that through refundable reservations or the policy offered by your cruise line or booking engine. If your trip includes services from multiple companies (for example, an airline and a cruise line), you’re better off to purchase an outside policy that covers your trip in full.
Basic travel insurance with standard emergency medical coverage usually costs about 10% of the total pre-paid trip price. If you’re in the habit of paying extra for refundable reservations, the lower price of non-refundable tickets and lodging will offset some, or maybe even most, of your insurance costs.
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Basic Travel Insurance Explained
The easiest way to get a comprehensive travel insurance policy is to use a service like Squaremouth, which lets you fill out basic information about your travel plans, and sends back quotes from up to 20 different travel insurance companies. A basic travel policy will include:
Trip cancellation reimburses your non-refundable, prepaid trip costs if you need to cancel your trip for a covered reason before you leave. Covered reasons include injury or illness to anyone in your travel group, death of an immediate family member not traveling with your group. If a natural disaster or terrorism strikes your destination after you book your trip, you’re covered for that too.
Trip Delay reimburses you for meals and lodging if your travel is significantly delayed due to airline delays or weather.
Trip Interruption covers the unused portion of your trip, and pays to get you home if you need to end your trip early due to an emergency.
Medical Travel Insurance Explained
Emergency Medical Coverage pays for urgent care, emergency room, hospital stays, doctors and medicine if you get sick or injured on your trip.
Emergency Medical Evacuation covers the cost of getting you to the nearest hospital when you’re first sick or injured, and if necessary, back to your home. This is essential on a cruise ship where there are limited medical facilities.
Pre-Existing Conditions can be covered if you purchase an additional waiver. In order to be eligible, your condition must have been stable for 60-180 days before the date purchased your insurance - the amount of time varies by insurer. This means that your medications must not have changed, and any tests ordered showed no change in your condition.
Autism, ADHD and diagnosed food allergies are considered to be pre-existing conditions by most travel insurance companies.
You should purchase your waiver within 14-21 days of booking your trip. Very few companies let you purchase later than that, and those few will charge a much higher price.
Other Travel Insurance Add-Ons
Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) will refund 50-75% of your trip purchase at any time for any reason. Insurance companies only sell this coverage within 14-21 days of your initial trip purchase.
Rental Car Insurance isn’t needed if you’re already covered by your credit card or personal auto insurance policy. Check with both before you invest in this coverage.
Extreme Sports Coverage applies to scuba diving, sky diving, and other similar dangerous activities that are normally excluded from insurance policies.
When to Buy Travel Insurance
You can buy travel insurance as late as 24 hours before you leave on your trip, but if you’re looking for upgrades like Cancel For Any Reason, or Pre-Existing Condition Waiver, you need to purchase your travel insurance within 14-21 days of booking your flight.
Weather related claims are accepted only if the policy was purchased before the specific weather event was forecasted. For example, if you’re going to Bermuda during hurricane season, and you buy insurance six months in advance, you’ll be covered if there’s a storm. If you wait to buy insurance until after there is a named storm heading to Bermuda on your travel dates, the policy will not cover trip cancellation, interruption or delay. If you want to be able to cancel if there’s a general bad weather forecast that will make your trip less enjoyable, you need a CFAR policy.
Bottom line, if you know you will purchase travel insurance, buy it within a week or two after you have your airline tickets. It’s OK to start with the cost of your flight, and update your coverage later to account for the cost of lodging and other non-refundable activities and transportation.
Squaremouth is a trusted broker that will get you quotes from over 20 different travel insurance companies in a matter of seconds without requiring your email or phone number until you decide to actually purchase. Click here to be directed to their site.
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