If you’re considering travel insurance for your holiday travel, there were a number of interesting articles written this week about things to consider. Last week we wrote about the importance of reading the fine print on any policy you’re considering. We stressed the importance of knowing exactly what you’re buying before you spend the cash. If you’re going to buy insurance, it ought to do what you think it is going to do — otherwise you might as well buy a lottery ticket! To extend on that, Personal Finance and Savings writes about a number of other factors to consider. Though they have a UK audience in mind, their guide offers a useful “travel insurance 101″ for beginners.

Eileen Ogintz, from the Miami Herald writes at length about why travelers should buy travel insurance. Among her more compelling reasons are winter sports:

A ski accident in Colorado last winter turned me into a believer. Sure, I had medical insurance. But my travel insurance policy picked up nearly $1,000 in costs that my medical insurance didn’t cover. Had it been necessary, the travel insurer would have arranged for medical evacuation and covered all of the costs if we’d needed to change our flights to return home earlier.

Finally, Group Trip Advisor, a frequent read for us here at Travel Guide for Your Finances, offers a number of valuable tips from a travel insurance “insider.” This is a must read for people on the brink of taking the travel insurance plunge. They cover a number of specific items to look at when considering travel insurance including: medical evacuation, nearest appropriate facility, coverage limits, trip cancellation, and terrorism coverage.

These days you can get insurance for just about anything, but in the travel industry, you can find insurance options for just about every aspect of travel you can think of:  trip cancellation, theft, baggage loss and even physical injury.  Additionally, the number of places you can buy travel insurance from is equally vast.  On the free side, many platinum credit cards come with basic travel related features.  But after that, the price for travel insurance can increase drastically, and it seems everyone is looking for a cut of the action.  Most car rental places will play coy about the free car rental insurance that comes standard with many credit cards as they try to pitch their own insurance options. Booking services will often offer cancellation protection for a fee, and travel agents can give you a whole host of insurance options when shopping for that perfect getaway.
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