INSUR ANCE
LifeMed Alaska helicopter. LifeMed Alaska
Safe Travels
Insurance provides peace of mind for vacationers By Tracy Barbour
W
hether it’s for a weekend getaway, exhilarating cruise, or extended adventure to Alaska, travel insurance can help vacationers protect their trip investment. Travel insurance can cover a myriad of potential calamities, from lost luggage and travel interruption/cancellation to health emergencies and even accidental death. There are a multitude of real-life situations in which vacation insurance becomes crucial. For example, if someone loses a piece of luggage containing important medications, travel insurance coverage assists with finding the bag or even filling an emergency prescription. Or say an extended family has been planning a big, annual reunion for months. But right before the event, a key family member gets too sick to go, 24 | October 2019
and everyone decides to cancel. Travel insurance helps people get reimbursed for non-refundable deposits, prepayments, and other covered expenses.
Importance of Travel Insurance The significance of travel insurance coverage cannot be overstated. At least not to Steve Judd, president of Alaska Tour & Travel. The tour company offers vacation packages, adventures, hotels, tours, Alaska cruises, and Alaska Railroad and bus trips in Seward, Anchorage, Denali Park, Talkeetna, and Fairbanks. “We recommend to all our guests traveling in Alaska on multi-day packages that they purchase travel insurance,” Judd says. Alaska is such a large state, he says, and its weather can have a significant
impact on transportation, whether it be the Alaska Railroad or highways. And this makes travel insurance coverage in Alaska especially important for vacationers. Often, though, it is not in Alaska that travel insurance is beneficial, but instead it’s to cover delays en route to Alaska. Airlines regularly have delays in the Lower 48, resulting in passengers arriving late. It’s advantageous for visitors to have travel insurance to help cover the costs of catching up to their itinerary or, in some cases, cover the cost of the items missed due to arrival delays. “Because tourism in Alaska is so seasonal, we often find that tour operators and lodges are not very lenient on last-minute cancellations, so having travel insurance can ease the cost of any last-minute, unforeseen changes to your
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