Choosing Travel Insurance

On a trip to a familiar domestic destination, you probably don’t need travel insurance. But it may be worth considering if you’re buying a cruise or tour package with hefty prepayments and heavy penalties for late cancellations.

Trip cancellation/interruption insurance typically covers your losses if a family medical crisis or certain other emergencies force you to cancel, postpone or abbreviate a trip. Emergency medical policies cover emergency transport or medical care or both. Insurance companies frequently offer “bundled” coverage that combines both types, along with provisions such as coverage for lost baggage.

Premiums for cancellation/interruption insurance are generally about $6 per $100 of trip cost--or about $120 to cover a $2,000 trip. But insurers are increasingly emphasizing bundled coverage that can add $2 or more per $100 of the trip cost to the basic coverage.

Many insurers, including Travel Assure and Travel Guard International, two of the country’s largest travel insurance companies, don’t offer stand-alone cancellation/interruption coverage. Among the major companies that do are Travel Insurance Services and Travel Insured International.

A few more details to remember:

* Most major companies will cover most preexisting medical conditions if you buy the coverage within seven to 14 days of making your first payment on the trip. At Access America, for instance, travelers 74 and younger can get preexisting conditions covered if they buy policies within 14 days of making their first payment on the trip. At Travel Assure, the cutoff is 10 days, with no age limit.

* Trip cancellation/interruption and bundled policies often include protection if your travel supplier (the tour operator, for instance) fails to deliver the service it sold you. But in many cases, you get that protection only if you decline the coverage offered by the supplier and instead buy a policy straight from an insurer.

* At least two insurers, C.S.A. Travel Protection and Globalcare Insurance Services, set premiums higher for travelers 55 to 70.

The major companies selling travel insurance include:

Access America, telephone (800) 284-8300, fax (800) 346-9265, Internet https://www.accessamerica.com. The company sells bundled policies and administers the American Express Vacation Protection Plan, tel. (800) 756-2639, fax (804) 673-1491. Under that program, which is not limited to American Express cardholders, travelers can buy cancellation/interruption coverage.

C.S.A. Travel Protection, tel. (800) 348-9505, Internet https://www.travelsecure.com.

Globalcare Insurance Services, tel. (800) 821-2488, Internet https://www.globalcare-cocco.com.

International S.O.S. Assistance, tel. (800) 523-8662, Internet https://www.internationalsos.com. Medical coverage.

Travel Insurance Services, tel. (800) 937-1387, Internet https://www.travelinsure.com.

Travelex Insurance Services, tel. (800) 228-9792, Internet https://www.travelex-insurance.com.

Travel Assure, tel. (800) 645-2424; offered by the Berkely Group, based in Garden City, N.Y. (Formerly known as Carefree Travel Insurance.)

Travel Guard International, tel. (800) 826-1300, Internet https://www.travel-guard.com.

Travel Insured International/The Travelers, tel. (800) 243-3174, Internet https://www.travelinsured.com.

Tripguard Plus, tel. (800) 423-3632; sold through M.H. Ross Travel Protection Services in Northridge, Calif.

Travel Assist International, sold through Specialty Risk International, tel. (800) 821-2828, Internet https://www.specialtyrisk.com/tai.