Right now, $873 of our money is sitting in other people's bank accounts for a trip that starts June 14. That's the number I kept staring at while hurricane season started this week.
Here's what it covers:
- Vrbo cabin near Townsend, 2 nights: $468
- Elkmont Campground, 5 nights: $150
- Hampton Inn in Savannah, 1 night, prepaid: $151
- Skidaway Island State Park, 2 nights: $104
We've never bought trip insurance before. Our camping trips are usually a couple of nights at a state park an hour or two away, and the most we'd lose by cancelling is a fee or two. This one is different, so this week we bought a basic trip-cancellation plan for $41.
What we were actually worried about
Not a hurricane in Tennessee. The things that kept coming up at our kitchen table were closer to home:
- A storm threatening Miami the week we're supposed to leave.
- One of the kids running a fever the night before.
- Ron or Linda, my parents in Ocala, getting sick. They're in their late 60s, and their house is our first night.
- Something happening mid-trip that sends us home early.
Some of that money would come back without any insurance. We'd get most of the Elkmont fee back through Recreation.gov, minus their fees. But the prepaid hotel rate is nonrefundable, and with less than two weeks to go, the cabin's cancellation policy no longer gives us anything back. By now, more than $600 of the $873 is money we'd simply lose.
What we compared
I used a comparison site that lets you enter the trip once and see quotes from several insurers side by side. I put in our dates, our state, everyone's ages and the $873 of prepaid, nonrefundable costs. I didn't include gas, groceries or anything we'd only spend if we actually went.
The quotes fell into three rough groups. Basic trip-cancellation plans were the cheapest, and the lowest was $41, about 4.7 percent of what we insured. Fuller plans with travel medical coverage and higher limits cost more. Plans with a cancel-for-any-reason upgrade cost roughly double, and even those only paid back part of the trip cost.
We skipped the medical coverage because our health insurance works out of state; I called to make sure before I assumed it. We skipped cancel-for-any-reason because paying twice as much to get part of our money back didn't feel worth it for this trip.
What our $41 plan covers, and what it doesn't
I read the policy document twice at the kitchen table, which is more than I've read of most things I've signed. Here's how I understood ours.
It covers cancelling or cutting the trip short for reasons on its list, including:
- illness or injury to one of us, or to a close family member, like my parents
- a hurricane that makes our home or our destination unlivable, or an evacuation order for either, as long as the storm didn't have a name when we bought the policy
It does not cover:
- changing our minds, or "the forecast looks bad"
- any storm that was already named when we bought it, which is the main reason we bought it in early June instead of waiting
- anything we didn't prepay
- Dana being called in to work, which matters in our house, because hospitals can need staff during a storm
That last one bugs me a little, but we went in knowing it. Every plan has its own list and its own fine print, so if you're thinking about one, a licensed agent is the person to walk you through it. This is just what we did.
Why we bought it at all
Honestly, it's mostly about sleep. Two kids, one parent with a hospital job, grandparents in their 60s, a long drive and the first two weeks of hurricane season. For $41, less than one restaurant dinner for four on this trip, we stop running the what-ifs at 11 p.m.
If we never use it, which is the plan, it goes in the trip log on the same kind of line as the cat sitter: money spent so we don't have to think about something for two weeks.
