A lovely family was planning a Norwegian cruise when they discovered a dire illness in a family member and would not be able to take their planned trip. Somehow, Norwegian was widely labelled the bad guys without benefit of first-hand knowledge of their actions upon the cancellation of the cruise.
Now that in itself is bad enough, but the truth of the matter is that none of this hoopla would have happened had the family made the investment in travel insurance. I've heard innuendo that the family member who worked with the travel agent chose not to purchase travel insurance because it was felt to be a scam or something.
Sure, most people who purchase travel insurance will, thankfully, never have the need to use it. Then again, most people with, say, flood insurance never use it either. It's a precaution. Nobody EXPECTS someone they're traveling with to fall ill or get injured. But stuff happens. You can't script life.
Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. When I planned our huge Epic vacation in Haven, I KNEW I was making an investment and insured that sucker. A week before we were set to sail, my husband, who was already suffering with some heavy-duty back issues -- fell, injuring himself further. As I said, we were about a week out from our sail date, something we had booked a full TWO YEARS ahead of time.
As we waited to see the Doctor with my husband in a wheelchair, I began looking into cancelling the cruise. It turned out my husband had no interest in cancelling, he wanted that cruise wheelchair/cane/scooter be damned! But had he decided otherwise, with our sail date so close, there was just no way Norwegian could have provided any refund for cancellation, it was just too close to sailing for them to possibly rebook that room. Impossible. BUT, if push came to shove, I had my travel insurance and could have cancelled without worry. Providing documentation that there was a legitimate medical excuse wouldn't have been a problem at all.
Listen, a vacation is an investment. You wouldn't buy a car without insuring it "just in case". Why should an investment in your downtime be treated any differently? "Just in case" is not only for other people, it's for you. It's not fatalistic, it's REALISTIC. Life happens, unscripted, unexpected and sometimes unfortunate. Insure yourself.