Travel insurance policies are notorious for containing endless pages of dense legal loopholes specifically written to ensure the company almost never has to pay out a claim when your trip is ruined.

A closer look

Travel insurance policies are notorious for containing endless pages of dense legal loopholes specifically written to ensure the company almost never has to pay out a claim when your trip is ruined. If your flight is canceled due to a volcanic eruption, a sudden civil war, or a pandemic, the underwriter will gleefully point to an obscure "act of god" clause hidden on page forty-two of the terms and conditions. You pay hundreds of extra dollars for peace of mind, only to discover that the coverage only realistically applies if you are struck by a very specific type of meteor on a Tuesday, leaving you utterly stranded in a foreign hospital trying to negotiate surgery costs through Google Translate