Do I Need Travel Insurance? What Every Traveler Should Know About Faye Travel Insurance Before Their Next Trip

Let me ask you something.

You spent months planning your trip. You put down deposits on a cruise, pre-paid tours, booked non-refundable flights. You've got thousands of dollars committed to this vacation — probably more than you spent on the last three trips combined.

Did you buy travel insurance?

If your answer is "I think my credit card covers that" or "I'll probably be fine" — this post is for you.

The Honest Truth About Why People Skip It

Travel insurance feels like buying something you hope never to use. And since most trips go smoothly, it's easy to look back and think you saved money by skipping it.

Until the year you don't.

A medical emergency in Europe. A hurricane bearing down on your departure city the week you're supposed to leave. A family situation that means you can't go at all. A flight cancellation that costs you two days of a seven-day trip.

These aren't freak scenarios. They're the calls I get. And the ones that hurt most are from people who had no coverage — or thought they did.

What Your Credit Card Actually Covers (Probably Less Than You Think)

Most premium credit cards offer some form of travel protection. That's real — but the details matter.

Credit card travel coverage is typically limited to trips paid for entirely on that card, has strict documentation requirements that many people don't know about until they're filing a claim, excludes medical emergencies or caps them at amounts that don't come close to covering actual costs, and rarely covers trip cancellation for the reasons that actually affect real people — illness, family emergencies, work situations.

Read the fine print on yours. Not to scare you — just to know what you actually have before you assume it's enough.

What About the Insurance the Cruise Line Sold Me?

Cruise line and resort-purchased insurance is better than nothing. But it's designed primarily to protect their cancellation terms, not yours.

It often locks your refund into a future cruise credit rather than cash back, has limited medical coverage, and won't cover interruptions caused by circumstances outside their operations. If your flight gets canceled before you even board, or you get sick mid-trip and need emergency medical transport home, you may find coverage far thinner than expected.

What Real Travel Insurance Actually Covers

A comprehensive travel insurance policy — the kind worth buying — covers the full picture of what can actually go wrong.

Trip cancellation is the obvious one. If you have to cancel before you leave for a covered reason — illness, injury, a death in the family, certain work situations — you get your non-refundable costs back in cash.

Trip interruption matters just as much. If something forces you to cut your trip short or return home early, you're reimbursed for what you didn't use — and covered for the cost of last-minute flights home.

Medical emergencies abroad are where people get into real financial trouble. Your domestic health insurance likely doesn't follow you overseas, or covers so little internationally that it's effectively useless. A hospital stay in another country can run tens of thousands of dollars before you even think about getting home.

Emergency evacuation is the number that shocks people most. Medical transport back to the US from a foreign country — by air ambulance if necessary — can cost $50,000 to $100,000 or more. Without coverage, that bill is yours.

Baggage loss and delay, travel delay expenses like meals and hotel stays when flights go sideways, and 24/7 assistance when you're trying to solve a problem from six time zones away round out what a good policy covers.

What I Use and Recommend: Faye Travel Protection

I've looked at a lot of options over the years. The one I recommend to every client — and buy for my own family's trips — is Faye Travel Protection.

What makes Faye different is how it works when you actually need it. Claims are filed and processed through an app, in real time, without stacks of paperwork or weeks of waiting. Coverage is comprehensive and clearly spelled out before you buy. And when something goes wrong at 2am in another country, someone picks up.

It's the policy I trust. Which is why it's the only one I sell.

A Question I Get More Than You'd Think

"I already booked my trip — not through you. Can I still get insurance?"

Yes. Absolutely yes.

You don't have to be a Tripp Travel planning client to get a Faye policy through me. If you have a trip coming up — booked anywhere, through anyone — reach out and I'll help you get covered. It takes about five minutes and there's no obligation to book future travel with me.

The only thing I'd say: don't wait too long. Some coverage benefits — like pre-existing condition waivers — require you to purchase within a certain window of your initial trip deposit. The sooner you have a policy in place, the more of your investment is protected.

So — Do You Need Travel Insurance?

If your trip is refundable, cheap, and close to home — maybe not.

If you've put real money into non-refundable bookings, you're traveling internationally, you're going on a cruise, or something going wrong would genuinely hurt financially — yes. You need it.

The question isn't really whether travel insurance is worth the cost. It's whether the trip you've planned is worth protecting.

I think it is. That's why I include it in every proposal I build — and why I'm happy to help you get covered even if you planned the whole thing yourself.

Ready to get a quote? It's free, takes five minutes, and there's no obligation.

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