Hope some experience travellers can give us a few tips on travel insurance - to cover big items such as trip cancellatlion and medical emergencies. I'm actually hoping someone can "endorse" one or two companies and advise which ones to avoid because I'm sure there are some unscrupulous operators in this field as in any other. Thanks for any and all advice!

There was an article covering this topic the other day in the NY Times. You should check it out (http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes....vel-insurance/).

For travel insurance, including medical and trip cancellation coverage, you can check out the following agencies. All are highly rated:

Seven Corners (www.sevencorners.com)
Insure My Trip (www.insuremytrip.com)
Travel Guard (www.travelguard.com)
Travel Insured (www.travelinsured.com)
TravelEx (www.travelexinsurance.com)
CSA Travel Protection (www.csatravelprotection.com)
Allianz (www.allianztravelinsurance.com)

Insure My Trip (as mentioned above) is a good place to search out policies and compare rates between companies. I use that for searching out insurance for all my trips.

I have used Berkeley and Allianz, including placing claims under both. I would used both of them again with no hesitation.

Are you US based? in the UK many banks give TI for free or very little activity, if UK based I can give a bunch of names.

I've used Travelguard and CSA. insuremytrip.com gives you details and AMBest ratings, I'm sure none of the companies they list are bogus, but some may give better service that others, of course. They have reviews, I believe.

Some credit cards offer travel insurance to their clients, so check that, first. If not, insuremytrip.com is a great place to start. We have filed a claim with Travel Guard and were pleased with their service.

We've bought insurance through insuremytrip.com a number of times and had to file claims twice. Both TravelGuard and Allianz paid up with no bother except for all the paperwork. We're somewhat limited on getting insurance for Europe as we want policies that include rental-car coverage, and they ar becoming rarer and more expensive.

If you contact www.itgworldwide.com,a representative can help you choose the best plan to meet your needs and budget. ITG represents the top international insurance companies.