Insurance… Do I Need You??

After some serious consideration, (not to mention serious prodding from concerned family members) I decided to spring for travel insurance to cover my trip. I have never taken out insurance for any of my previous trips, and to be brutally honest… I had no idea they even offered it on my island! I don’t know anyone who has taken out a policy for a trip before, but I’m about to try it out for myself.

The main reason I was being so unwilling to apply for travel insurance, is the fact that the companies in Antigua have no problem accepting your payment for the insurance. It’s when something goes wrong that the real headache begins. They will put you through the grinder before simply providing the service for which they agreed to. I’m sorry, but I have little to no faith in the insurance companies…

As I’m writing this post, my meeting with the insurance agent is within 3 hours. I’m using a local service ABI Insurance, as opposed to an online company, mainly because Antigua isn’t listed on most of the global insurance websites… Go figure. I chose ABI Insurance as the most likely candidate after calling around to approximately 5 different agencies. Believe it or not, only two of the companies I called actually offered travel insurance! 

After speaking to the friendly agent on the phone, concerning the different policies which they had available, I was given a short list of documents which I needed to present when I arrived, including a photocopy of my passport and a detailed travel itinerary. The agent asked me to list the countries which I planned on visiting, then suggested I take out their plan with the maximum coverage. The said plan covers me for 100,000 XCD and costs $87.50 XCD for my month of travel.

I didn’t think that this was a bad deal at all. Converted into USD, I was being offered a maximum protection of over 35,000 USD for a little over $30 USD. Frankly, I think the price is crazy, but seeing that I apparently require some form of insurance to visit Europe, who am I to complain? Sign me up! Hopefully, all will go well and the insurance will only be a precaution, and not a necessity.

Do you take out insurance for your trips?