The travel insurance provided by the Chase Sapphire Reserve made a family crisis more manageable.

In September 2023, my fiance and I were about to embark on a road trip to New Orleans to celebrate my birthday. We had been planning this trip for over two years.

My dad informed me that my grandmother had fallen and suffered a broken hip. She was not expected to recover and was receiving hospice care.

I canceled the vacation rental I had booked and spent the next few days going back and forth to my grandmother's facility. On the night before she passed away, I was upset about losing someone important and having to cancel my dream vacation. To make matters worse, I was out nearly $500. Since I canceled the rental after the deadline for a full refund, I only received a partial refund of $243 out of the $717 I paid for the house.

I often write about insurance, but when planning my own trips, I rarely consider the possibility of things going wrong. After not obtaining travel insurance and experiencing unexpected issues, I felt frustrated with myself.

I remembered something: The travel insurance policy was included with my Chase Sapphire Reserve® card, which I used to make the reservation.

I had been considering the Chase Sapphire Reserve card for years due to its benefits such as an annual $300 travel credit, Priority Pass airport lounge access, and reimbursement for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck®. However, the $550 annual fee deterred me. Eventually, in early 2023, I decided to apply after realizing that the benefits outweighed the cost, especially since my fiance and I planned several international trips.

I earned 75,000 points from the welcome bonus after spending $4,000 on purchases in the first three months of opening the card, which I used to pay for a flight to Tokyo.

We utilized our travel credit for a luxurious hotel in Toronto and, thanks to the Priority Pass benefit of our card, we unwound in the Plaza Premium Lounge at the airport prior to our flight back home. Additionally, since the Chase Sapphire Reserve does not impose foreign transaction fees, shopping in Canada was free of any unwanted additional charges.

I hadn't thoroughly examined the credit card's travel insurance policy before. To my surprise, it encompasses a range of benefits.

• Insurance that covers non-refundable expenses for trips cancelled or shortened due to injury, illness, death in the family, severe weather, or other unforeseen circumstances, up to $10,000 per person and $20,000 for the entire trip.
• Reimbursement for trip delays: Refunds expenses incurred due to delays exceeding six hours or necessitating an overnight stay, up to $500 per ticket booked with the card.
• If your bags are misplaced by your carrier for more than six hours, you may be eligible for up to $100 in reimbursement for five days with baggage delay insurance.
• Coverage for lost luggage by the carrier is up to $3,000 per passenger.
• Transportation for illness or injury is covered up to $100,000 during emergency evacuation.
• Medical and dental coverage with a limit of $2,500 for incidents beyond 100 miles from home.
• If your rental car is stolen or involved in a collision, the rental car collision damage waiver will reimburse up to $75,000. This coverage kicks in before your auto policy, preventing a premium increase.

A standalone travel insurance policy from a company costs around 3% to 5% of a trip's non-refundable expenses, while Chase Sapphire's offerings are similarly priced. Additionally, bundling travel insurance with your card eliminates the need to obtain a new policy for every trip.

I couldn't find a reason why my Chase policy wouldn't cover the New Orleans reservation balance, so I gathered details of my original booking and refund from the home-share app, a hospice nurse's note, and my grandmother's death certificate.

Filing an insurance claim with Chase was a relatively painless process. I completed the form and submitted my documentation entirely from my phone. Six weeks later, I received an email that my claim had been approved. The $474 was automatically deposited into my checking account, so there was no hassle with a paper check.

I never wanted to file that claim. Instead, I wish we had driven to New Orleans, come home, and shared our stories about our adventures with my grandmother. However, sometimes, life has other plans.

My experience convinced me that travel insurance is necessary, and I made the right choice with my Chase Sapphire Reserve card.

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