My health insurance premium increased by about 25% this year. I’ve heard of increasing premiums, but this seemed a little bit excessive. I tried calling my health insurance provider for an explanation, but in addition to “the run-around”, the only answer that I really got was that my insurance premium was increasing due to the increasing costs of operations and providing health insurance coverage to subscribers.

Is it time for me to start shopping for a new health insurance provider? I don’t know if I can continue to keep paying these high premiums, and next year when my policy renews, will I be in for the same type of increase?

The only thing that helps me justify the high cost of my health insurance premium is the fact that health insurance and medical expenses are tax deductible. Not that being able to write-off my health insurance cost actually justifies the high price, it really only gives me an excuse to keep paying for it.

After the happenings of the past week, first with Aloha Airlines declaring bankruptcy, now today, ATA Airlines declaring bankruptcy, thousands of people have found themselves with a plane ticket, but with no plane to fly on.

In both of these cases, it is very unlikely that travelers will see any sort of refund from either of these companies, but the few travelers who had purchased travel insurance are the happy ones right now. Travel insurance, which is a fairly uncommon purchase by my standards, except when traveling internationally, can cover a wide array of things that can happen during your trip, from loss of transportation to injury. Here’s a brief list of what travelers insurance covers:

• Medical expenses
• Emergency evacuation/repatriation
• Overseas funeral expenses
• Accidental death, injury or disablement benefit
• Cancellation
• Curtailment
• Delayed departure
• Loss, theft or damage to personal possessions and money (including travel documents)
• Delayed baggage (and emergency replacement of essential items)
• Legal assistance
• Personal liability and rental car damage excess

In the future, consider purchasing travel insurance when booking large scale vacations to help protect yourself against large travel companies declaring bankruptcy or encountering other unforeseen problems.