Trip-Cancellation Insurance

I'm traveling to the Middle East in a year, and the tour company is asking $855 for trip insurance, which includes coverage I don't need, since I have other emergency-medical insurance. Do you know of a company that offers trip-cancellation insurance only?

–Patricia, Cypress, Calif.

First off, Patricia, you're on the right track in not wanting to use the tour company for trip insurance. You should almost always use a third-party provider for any sort of trip insurance, avoiding an eggs-in-one-basket scenario.

There are plenty of companies that offer trip-cancellation insurance only. In fact, most of the major insurance providers, like Access America, TravelGuard, TravelInsure, and HTH Travel Insurance, provide this type of coverage.

To compare the different options, check out InsureMyTrip.com, which is a site that doesn't sell insurance, but simply offers information and comparisons of various plans and companies.

Usually, trip insurance is the most basic (and hence, cheapest) type of coverage. For your purposes, though, that seems like exactly what you'd need.