A Decision of Uncertainty
Decision: To purchase or not purchase trip insurance
My girlfriend and I vacationed to Montego Bay, Jamaica. The time that we chose to vacation was the month of August, this is considered to be late summer. The dates of travel were determined because these days were available to take on my work vacation calendar. My girlfriend and I discovered that late summer was the height of hurricane season.
The trip was booked, and we were to stay at Secrets an all-inclusive resort. Our travel agent advised that we purchase trip insurance in the case of a tropical cyclone, it was explained to us that if our trip was canceled due to weather conditions with the trip insurance we would be reimbursed with travel vouchers that are valid for a year. The fee for such insurance would be an additional 30% more than our original trip purchase. Without insurance, there was the possibility that our trip could be canceled because of weather conditions and the purchase of the trip would be non-refundable.
Our decision at that time was to determine if we were going to pay the additional amount for trip insurance. Paying an additional cost would take away from our allotted spending budget, or we could risk losing our vacation fund and not worry about the possibility of a tropical cyclone.
Research:
We decided to do research so that we would come to an informed decision. The research consisted of data gathered from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We discovered that on average the tropical cyclone season produces 11 named storms of which two are major hurricanes. We understood that while traveling through the summer to the fall periods our trip would be less expensive; however, it is also the riskiest time to travel. Although several resorts offer instituted hurricane guarantees, at an additional cost, these polices are very hard to collect on. After our research was collected we meticulously interpreted our data so that we could make...