“Travel Insurance” covers a wide range of risks. And we tend to use that general term for all the following risks.
- Accidental Death:
- Sports: to cover raft trips, climbing, skiing etc. Camino walks usually do not fall in this category
- Loss or Delay: travel delay, baggage delay, baggage loss, missed connection
- Evacuation (medical and non-medical): coverage from 100k to a million.
- Medical: emergency (probably 50-100k works for France/Spain, need million for USA. And deductibles from zero to $2500
- Cancellation and trip interruption: work loss/layoff, medical, weather (hurricane), terrorism, medical, delays, and CANCEL FOR ANY REASON.
IMO opinion, evacuation, and medical, are the biggest risks followed by cancellation. Some of the others (baggage loss, delays, baggage loss, accident) are small enough tho frequent enough to not be truly in the ‘insurance’ category—just severe annoyance. But they are mostly included in base policies, so the purchaser thinks they are getting something.
I highly suggest playing around with Squaremouth—stopping just short of a purchase on their website. Big factors in the cost seem to be: age, trip duration, trip cost, reason for cancellation, and pre-existing medical conditions. Of course, those are where the insurance company has its risks—it cannot afford someone with preexisting heart using travel as a way to pay for a needed or recommended transplant; or somebody severely hurt mountain climbing.
With insurance, the devil is in the details. Know what risks you have, what you cannot afford to pay, and
read the policy to see you are covered. Then talk to the insurance company with specific questions. My 2017 CP coverage for medical and evac was solid within my stated dates (no specific detail needed). They did not pay for my Achilles exam and xray since I waited until I got back to the USA to seek treatment (which was partially covered under Medicare out of area). They did pay my one-way return fare $650) under the medical evacuation terms, but higher would have been capped by my ‘trip cost’ of $1000 (the only insurable trip cost was the prepay RT East Coast to Lisbon, they did not pay train fare Barcelos to Lisbon because I lacked proper documentation).
At age 76, my insurance cost is about $175 for a $1000 airfare (trip cost) and a 35 day walk. That's without my now needed ‘waiver of pre-existing conditions’ so the cost will change probably dramatically for my next camino.
FWIW, the husband of a lady in my Monday walking group had heart attack on a cruise and the (insured) evac cost to Tokyo(?? Or Singapore??) was above $50,000 but under $100,000.
And most policies will not cover USA/Canada treatment for USA residents. And basic Medicare does not cover overseas medical (some Advantage and supplemental policies do).
And I feel sorry for those of you who are in the USA when a medical emergency strikes. You get to pay the “Chargemaster” rate which is 4.3 times higher than what the Hospitals negotiate with insurance carriers-- so my overnite hospital stay that Medicare pays $280 for, will cost my French Camino friends $1200 (the average hospital stay in USA costs over $10,000 but ‘averages’ are almost useless in our complex medical billing environment)
I am not an expert on travel insurance but have had to research it fairly well—I have almost never taken the airline add-on default insurance; but you need to do your own research including asking the insurer questions to keep yourself protected. Trust but verify!!