We filed a claim for a canceled flight. It should have been straightforward. It wasn’t.

The travel insurance company — not one of the three providers we recommend in this post — gave us the runaround from the start. First, they argued we had waited too long to file. When we pushed back and made clear their position was unacceptable, they shifted tactics. Now the problem was that we didn’t have “the correct” documentary evidence that we had purchased the tickets. We produced the evidence. Then came objection number three: our specific cancellation circumstance, they said, didn’t fall within the policy’s terms and conditions.

Three objections. Three different reasons to deny the same claim. Each one surfaced only after we overcame the last.

We eventually resolved it, but the experience burned a lesson into us that we carry on every trip since: read the terms and conditions before you buy. And keep a copy of those terms after you purchase — because if you ever need to file a claim, you’ll be arguing from a document, not from memory.

That experience changed how we think about travel insurance entirely. It’s not about whether you have a policy. It’s about whether you have the right policy — and whether you understand exactly what it covers before something goes wrong.

We Thought We Were Covered

Most travelers assume they’re protected while traveling. Between health insurance, the travel coverage bundled with a premium credit card, and whatever policy they clicked “yes” to during checkout, it feels like the bases are covered. They usually aren’t.

Here’s what catches people off guard. Your domestic health insurance likely doesn’t cover you internationally — and if it does, it typically covers treatment at the nearest adequate facility, not at the hospital you’d actually choose. Credit card travel benefits sound generous in marketing brochures but come with narrow eligibility windows, low caps, and exclusions that only become visible when you read the fine print during a crisis. And that cheap policy you added at checkout when booking a flight? Read the terms. You may find that the specific reason your trip fell apart isn’t listed among the covered scenarios.

Then there’s the cost most people don’t think about at all: medical evacuation. If you need to be transported from a foreign hospital to one back home — or even from a rural domestic hospital to a major trauma center — the cost can run from $30,000 to $180,000. Most standard health plans and travel policies don’t cover this type of event. They’ll get you to the nearest facility. Getting home is your problem.

Then We Watched It Work for Someone Else

After our own frustrating claims experience, we were skeptical. Then we watched travel insurance work exactly as it should — for someone who needed it far more than we did.

A 90-year-old fellow FRVA member suffered a stroke while traveling in his RV. He couldn’t drive. He couldn’t get himself home. His wife, traveling with him, didn’t drive the RV.

The FRVA Medical & Travel Assist program — underwritten by Arch Insurance Company — stepped in. They covered the cost of flying a relative to the member’s location to drive the RV home. They paid the relative’s travel expenses. They covered lodging and related costs so the man’s wife could travel home alongside the relative driving the RV. No runaround. No shifting objections. No denied claims.

The plan did exactly what it promised at the moment a family needed it most. That tells you more about an insurance company than any brochure ever could.

The contrast between our experience and his couldn’t have been sharper. Same concept — travel insurance. Completely different execution.

Why RVers Should Pay Particular Attention

If you travel by RV, travel insurance isn’t just for flights and hotels. The RV lifestyle creates a financial risk category many travelers never consider.

Mechanical breakdowns, medical events, and family emergencies can force you to cancel RV park reservations, miss rallies, skip conferences, or abandon events you’ve already paid for. And here’s the part that stings: most RV parks won’t refund a canceled reservation. At best, they’ll offer a credit toward a future stay — at a park you may never return to. Rally fees, conference registrations, and event tickets? Those are typically gone.

Trip insurance can reimburse you for these losses. A canceled reservation at a premium RV resort during peak season, registration fees for a rally you had to skip because of a medical issue, the non-refundable deposit on a guided caravan trip — these are real costs that add up quickly, and they’re exactly the kind of expenses a good travel insurance policy is designed to cover.

For full-time RVers, the math is even more compelling. You’re always traveling. Every week, you have reservations, deposits, and commitments on the calendar. One medical event or mechanical failure can cascade into thousands of dollars in lost prepayments. Coverage that protects those costs isn’t a luxury — it’s practical risk management.