I quit buying travel insurance for every single trip after a $9 bus ride taught me a lesson
Everyone in the budget travel groups screams that skipping insurance is dumb, but I read a comment from some guy in a hostel in Medellin who said he never buys it for short domestic hops and I thought he was reckless. Then I looked at my own numbers and got mad. Over the past 3 years I took 27 bus and train trips across Colombia and Mexico, and I was paying 12 to 18 bucks a pop for coverage that never once paid out, mostly because the fine print only covers delays over 8 hours and lost bags on flights, not on buses. On one 9 dollar ride from Medellin to Guatape my bus broke down for 5 hours and I got nothing back anyway. Meanwhile the one time I actually needed money was a hospital visit in Oaxaca, 340 bucks out of pocket, and my policy rejected it because I didn't file within 24 hours. So now I only buy insurance for international flights or anything over 500 dollars, and I put the rest in a separate savings pot I call the oh well fund. It has 600 dollars sitting in it now, which is more than any payout I ever got. Does anyone else just self insure the small trips, or am I going to get burned eventually?