Buying travel insurance is important for three major reasons. First, travel insurance protects you from losing your financial investment in buying a trip overseas, if for any reason an emergency forces you to cancel it. Second, travel insurance enables you to pay for either treatment within your destination country, or even to pay for your exit from your destination if a serious illness, injury, or death to someone in your party occurs, while you are travelling and you need to return home. Third, travel insurance can protect the value of your possessions while you are travelling, so that you will be compensated if they are lost or stolen.
The first reason is obviously compelling: it is not unforeseeable that unexpected factors will simply render you unable to travel, and many trips demand a significant outlay upfront. Having travel insurance is also particularly important with regards to the second reason, because of the variation in approach to charging tourists for health care in different countries.
In many countries, you will be required to pay, often on the spot, for the price of any medicines used to treat you, physician’s visits, minor or major surgery, or for use of a hospital bed or ambulance. Finally, as well as due to general human error and accident in mislaying possessions, tourists are often particular targets for thieves in some countries. This leaves many travellers robbed and unable to make many advances towards recovering their possessions. Travel insurance can ensure you will not lose out in this respect.
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