Travel insurance should be mandatory when taking a vacation.
Depending on where you live, it is not expensive to purchase insurance for travel these days.
Here in the UK, travel insurance can cost as little as £10, so really, you have nothing to lose by purchasing it and everything to gain!
In the event that your personal belongings are stolen or go missing, as well as reporting it to the local authorities in a foreign country, you can report it to your travel insurance company who will usually grant you a sum of money to replace them once they receive a crime reference number.
As well as covering missing and stolen items, travel insurance also covers you, as the traveler, directly, meaning that if you fall ill or sustain a serious injury while on vacation, your insurance company will cover medical costs up to a certain amount, but this is usually plenty!
Medical bills can be very expensive in the States and the last thing a foreign person needs is to be caught up with paying huge amounts of money.
I should imagine it would be quite shocking, for example, to a person originating from the UK, who usually gets their medical care paid for by the government, yet, get lumbered with big numbers because they had a fall.
There are “special” insurance companies out there that cater for disabled people, and while purchasing insurance from these specialist companies can cost quite a bit more, it is not wise for a disabled person to take a chance and go without! They will cover many pre-existing medical conditions and will also cover any specialist surgery that a disabled person may require.
Moving slightly away from medical and possession reasons, flight cancellations are very common, and travel insurance companies will usually cover the cost of a canceled flight but may also cover you if you fall ill before going on your trip and you are not well enough to travel.
You should be aware that certain countries will cost more to purchase insurance, especially if you plan to do some heavy physical activities such as rock climbing or water skiing, so you need to consider the cost of these things.
Travel insurance companies may not also cover you if your trip is over a certain amount of time, such as over thirty one days, or if you are over a certain age such as sixty or seventy.
The good thing is insurance companies give you plenty of options to choose from in terms of what to be covered for and you do not have to be covered for everything. You can usually pick and choose so you can keep the cost down but it all depends whether you can afford to risk certain things on your trip.