Welcome to this series of hints and tips designed to improve your travel experience. This question comes up quite a lot. This person has stated, ''My credit card provider offers travel insurance. Does this mean that I don't need to buy any travel insurance for my trip?'' Effectively, can I trust the insurance policy that's offered to me by my credit card provider? We believe that there are too many grey areas, and always recommend that you should take out additional travel insurance because of these grey areas. For instance, some policies only cover travel that's paid for using the card, while others may require that more than 50% of the total itinerary costs be paid for prior to travel using that card. Then many other exclusion clauses are also very broad. Many others have been caught out. Examples of these are finding that cover may not have extended to many vacuations. Finding the duration of the cover is limited only to the periods of travel and is not available 24 hours a day. Finding that only the card holder and the spouser cover do not others in the group. And quite often travel is using frequent flyer points may well not be covered either. Read the small print. Ensure that you have read the small print for the credit card travel insurance policy to find out exactly what you are covered for, and more importantly what you are not covered for. We found that it's useful to read this side by side with the terms of an insurance policy which is provided by a specialist travel insurer. Is it there in writing? Never assume that you will be covered for anything that isn't specifically stated in writing in the policy offered by the credit card provider. If it isn't there, then you are not covered. In general, it isn't possible to speak directly with the representatives of the underwriter for these policies, because the bank will simply purchase this a bulk lot and won't be there to answer detailed questions. Ensure that you understand the risk. We personally recommend that you don't run the risk of assuming you will be covered for every eventuality from your credit card insurance. Unless you are very sure you have understood clearly everything in the policy document. After all, you don't want to find yourself severely financially compromised once your trip is over. For much, much more, please visit www.treveltipsandhins.com