the cheapest travel insurance options, considering expert and consumer recommendations.
Winter 2022 outlook: With uncertainty in the economy and trickier weather conditions to contend with as the temperatures cool down (think: snow, sleet, freezing rain and wind), winter is an important time to purchase travel insurance to make sure your trip is covered. Travel insurance with a cancel for any reason rider can help you get money back if you are no longer able to take a vacation you originally booked due to financial hardship, such as losing your job or trying to cut back on expenses as talks of a recession loom. It can also protect in the case of severe weather:
You can be reimbursed for costs incurred if you are delayed on the way to your destination and numerous plans offer trip cancellation coverage if the journey is canceled due to poor weather. Travel insurance can also be helpful for people whose luggage has been lost or delayed on the way to their final destination:
Due to staff shortages, reports of baggage issues are on the rise and many policies will reimburse you for clothes and toiletries you may have to buy if your luggage is lost or missing.
There are plenty of smart ways to save money on your travel plans, but refusing to buy travel insurance isn’t necessarily one of them. Sure, you may not feel you need a travel insurance policy if you are going on a road trip or planning a cheap vacation close to home. However, we all know “life happens” and plenty of scenarios can knock your travel plans off track.
Why do you need travel insurance? Before COVID-19 brought the travel world to a screeching halt, vacations could be interrupted or canceled altogether due to an unexpected illness, a family emergency or a cancellation by an airline or resort. Not only that, but travel insurance can also cover other components of your trip you may not even think of.
This could include lost or stolen baggage or a missed connection that requires a sudden hotel stay and a few dinners while you’re rerouted on another flight. With ongoing uncertainty as the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect travelers in the U.S. and around the world, travel insurance might be another thing you want to factor into your overall trip cost when planning a vacation.
To determine the Cheapest Travel Insurance Companies, U.S. News created sample traveler profiles for three separate eight-day trips to different domestic and international destinations at various price points. We used that information to get quotes for the cheapest option for 100% trip cancellation coverage for each trip. We then calculated the average cost of the trips to determine the sample average cost.
Find more information on the methodology for the Cheapest Travel Insurance Companies here. (Note: The sample average costs are not price quotes from U.S. News. To find a travel insurance price quote, use the “get a quote” link to enter your trip details and find more information.)
The Cheapest Travel Insurance Companies:
World Nomads Travel Insurance
* Trawick International
* AXA Assistance USA
* GoReady Travel Insurance
* Generali Global Assistance
* Allianz Travel Insurance
* Nationwide Insurance
* Seven Corners
* IMG Travel Insurance
* American Express Travel Insurance
Keep in mind coverage limits and availability may vary by state. Also note: Coverage for trip cancellation or interruption due to COVID-19 varies by provider, so you’ll want to consult each travel insurance website for further details. Read on to find out more about what each company offers and decide which travel insurance policy is right for you.
Many American workers remain in jobs they’d rather leave — simply because they don’t want to lose their health insurance, a new Gallup poll reveals.
That’s the situation for 16% of respondents in a nationwide poll of more than 3,800 adults conducted March 15-21.
The fear is strongest among Black workers. Pollsters found they are more likely to keep an unwanted job at 21% than Hispanic respondents (16%) or white respondents (14%).
Workers with annual household incomes below $48,000 are most likely (28%) to stay put in order to keep health benefits, and three times more likely to do so than workers in households making $120,000 or more, according to the joint West Health-Gallup poll.
“Health care costs have become so high that many Americans are unwilling to risk any disruption in their coverage even if that means higher and higher premiums and deductibles and sticking with a job they may not like,” said Tim Lash, chief strategy officer for West Health, a group of nonprofit organizations that aim to lower health care costs.
About 158 million Americans have employer health insurance.
The poll suggests that 135 million Americans fear they will eventually be priced out of health care, if they haven’t been already.
More than half of respondents said they are “concerned” or “very concerned” that health care services (53%) and prescription drugs (52%) will become unaffordable. More worry about rising health care costs than about losing their home (25%) or job (29%), pollsters found.
Forty-two percent said they’re concerned they wouldn’t be able to pay for a major health problem, including 49% of Hispanic respondents and 47% of Black participants.
“Americans are increasingly concerned that they will get priced out of the U.S. health care system and are struggling to hang on in any way they can,” Lash said in a West Health news release.
Earlier this year, about 46 million people — 18% of the U.S. population — said they could not afford health care if they needed it today.
The poll found substantial support for federal government action to control health care costs.
About three-quarters of respondents favor limiting prescription drug price increases (77%); capping hospital prices in areas with few or no other hospitals (76%), and having the government negotiate lower prices for some high-cost drugs that don’t have lower-priced alternatives (74%). About two-thirds support government limits on prices for out-of-network care.
Respondents with private insurance were as supportive of government intervention as those on public health plans, including Medicare and Medicaid.
“Polling data from West Health and Gallup continue to demonstrate that most Americans are supportive of an elevated government role in curtailing the rising costs of care,” said Dan Witters, a senior researcher for Gallup. “How elected officials respond to this is unfolding, but there seems to be substantive public support for a number of specific proposals that are on the table.”
The margin of error varied from question to question, ranging from 1.3 to 4 percentage points.
