Is travel insurance needed?

[GeekyLynn]

I've only bought travel insurance once and it didn't cover the one mishap of my trip - missing a plane by sleeping through my alarm. Is travel insurance even useful? If so, what is a dependable company (I'm American, if that matters) to buy it with? And is there any plan out there for the real things that go wrong but are your fault, like missing flights? Thanks!

[dzug]

If you are an American living in America, then you need to ask this question on an American web site.

If you are an American living in the UK, then there are loads of companies (the fact that you are American is irrelevant except that if they cover repatriation it will be to the UK, not the US ). This site:

https://www.quote-link.net/xml/themotleyfoolTravelQuotes/travelquotes_form.cfm?type=travelmenu&affiliateURL_ID=157

will allow you to compare lots of policies.

You won't find one that covers you for oversleeping. The insurance for that is to buy a fully flexible ticket.

No insurance covers you for things that are your own fault. If you drive your car into a tree deliberately you won't be covered for damage to your car, no matter how well insured you are. (It might pay the owner of the tree, but that's a different matter)

Travel insurance is useful for travelling in places like the US where hospitals and doctors won't treat you if you don't pay up front. According to UK popular perception anyway.

[spudqueen]

Well I'm English but would not travel anywhere abroad without travel insurance (especially America). It covers you for medical emergencies (my brothers step daughter broke her back in a mechanical rodeo bull accident last year in Tenerife and had to be flown home with an accompanying nurse and took up about 7 seats of the plane, she had to be taken to the airport by ambulance), loss of luggage etc. Though some of it is laughable (�50 a day if you're hijacked!). I don't think you can be insured against your own stupidness eg oversleeping and missing a flight.