One of the things that often slip people’s minds when booking a trip is having insurance coverage. The more expensive your trip, the more important it is to get coverage to protect your investment. For trips requiring prepayment, like tours and cruises, you want to be protected if you need to cancel the trip due to medical or other personal situations. Travel insurance can also provide coverage for trip delays and baggage loss and delays. These coverages may overlap what you’ll already get from the credit card you used to pay for the trip but it’s included with most packages and may have higher limits or less stringent requirements to collect for payment.
In addition to coverage for your travel expenses, trip insurance can also include medical coverage for anything from having to go to the doctor for an ear infection to paying the fee if you need to be airlifted off a mountain after a skiing accident. Even if you have medical insurance at home, you need to buy medical coverage if you’re traveling outside the US.
When buying insurance for a trip, I usually only look for medical coverages by using Insure My Trip. They search for various insurance policies and let you compare coverages and costs.
Things were a little different for our trip to Iceland. I wanted to find a plan to cover any COVID-related expenses if we needed to cancel, extend or shorten the trip. I was also looking for a policy with medical coverage, including medical expenses and emergency evacuation because we were planning to go hiking to some waterfalls and possibly going on a boat out to the glacier.
Instead of using my usual website, I looked at a different one that I discovered right before the lockdown in early 2020. World Nomads sells travel insurance that’s more focused on those who are into exploring the world.
Like you, travel is in our blood and exploring is our way of life. Our mission is to help you get the most out of your adventures and support you when things go wrong.
Instead of offering you a broad range of options, World Nomads has two choices, Standard and Explorer. The main difference between the two is that the policy limits are higher for the Explorer plan ($3,000 for trip delays vs. $500 for the Standard coverage.) The Explorer plan also provides rental car damage protection (if allowed) and extended coverage for adventure sports.
Since we were hiking, I wanted to see what the World Nomads considered high-risk activities requiring the Explorer coverage. It didn’t take long for me to realize that these policies are for people way more active than Sharon and me, as all of these activities are covered under the Standard policy.
- Deep-sea fishing
- Zip line
- Parasailing
- Kayaking
- Glacier walking
- Caving (sightseeing/tourist attraction)
- Horse riding (leisure, social, bare back, non-competitive riding)
- Canyoning
Even the most dangerous activity we’ve ever done falls under the standard coverage.
Yep! That’s Sharon when we went canyoning in Utah. That was years ago and it’s not gonna happen now.
Here are some of the activities that are considered high-risk:
- Bull riding
- Cliff jumping
- Jet pack
- Tough Mudder
- Tandem skydiving
- Trapeze
- Running of the bulls (with the bulls)
If you’re wondering which activities fall into each category, here’s a link to the full list. Some unexpected things are in the Explorer category, as certain types of volunteer work. They’ve also thrown in a few humorous ones in there.
No matter which type of travel insurance coverage you purchase, it makes sense to read the exclusions before making your purchase. If you’re looking for a specific policy, using the filters on Insure My Trip can find you the exact policy you want but if you’re looking for an all-around travel policy, World Nomads coverage is a good option.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and get emailed notifications of when we post. Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group – we have 23,000+ members and we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
