Let me start by saying that I never thought I would support travel insurance. I always figured it was some scam looking for a few extra bucks. I also never took any particularly dangerous trips where I could get hurt and any flight delays or cancelations that I have experienced were never so catastrophic that it caused me to have to cancel an entire trip.

Well, that all changed back in June. I had booked a 2-week vacation to Spain and England with my best friend. Four days before we were scheduled to depart, I was feeling sick, but thought nothing of it. That night, I took a turn for the worse and headed straight to the hospital. Still delusional, I thought I would be out in time for my vacation. When the morning of my departure arrived, and no sign of being checked out anytime soon, I called American Airlines to cancel.

Placed on an IV drip

One on the phone with American, I was informed I would receive a voucher to use on future travel, less a $300 cancelation fee! Ouch. On top of that, because I was canceling the first hotel within less than 24 hours, I was responsible for paying the first night. Luckily the other hotels were refundable. Plus the flight from Barcelona to London was non-refundable. In total, I was out almost $800! After that experience, I went through and re-evaluated all my upcoming travel to see if I thought any trips were worthy of purchasing travel insurance. One of the trips I had purchased an insurance plan for was an upcoming trip to Marrakesh over Thanksgiving.

The Incident
Now, here is where you’re thinking I got sick, or there was some catastrophic event that occurred. Well, some may consider what happened next a catastrophic event.

I came home one afternoon and opened my mailbox. As I sifted through the endless junk, a hint of blue caught my eye. In big bold letters, it read “IMPORTANT: Jury Summons Enclosed”.

The dreaded letter

I opened the letter in a panic and read the date I am called to serve – November 24^th at 9 am. The very same day I was scheduled to leave for Morocco. And this wasn’t any typical jury summons. This was Grand Jury summons, which if you don’t know – it sucks. Typical jury duty, you are called and questioned by lawyers from each side and they choose who will serve on a jury. You can be excused within a day or two. Grand jurors are selected by a random lottery process and are required to sit for a 2-6 week period, Monday through Friday! Postpone for a later date, you say. Well, I had done that so many times already, that I was running out of postponements.

I immediately checked my insurance policy. I know I had seen somewhere that jury duty qualifies as a covered reason but did my plan include it? Sure enough, being called to serve on a jury is a covered reason under my plan. I could breathe a sigh of relief, for now. I started canceling the refundable things, such as my hotels and anything else I had booked. Turns out all I would need to be covered for is the $300 change fee on American Airlines. So for a plan that cost me $51, I’d say it was worth it.

I’ve only just begun the claims process with the insurance company, so I can’t report on the ease (or lack thereof) of the process, but stay tuned for any updates.

Let me know if you’ve ever had an experience where travel insurance helped you out.