Travel insurance should be a wasted investment. Generally, anyway.

I’ve taken a number of trips over the years, and on every one of them I’ve taken out travel insurance. 

Sometimes I’ve weighed up my options, and oftentimes I’ve sat down with a cup of coffee to carefully study the Ts and Cs. Small print traps are a near-certainty when it comes to travel insurance, from single-article limits to how long your trip is allowed to be.

Each time, the best-case scenario in which I had nothing to claim for came about. Each time, travel insurance was a fortuitously pointless expense.

All that changed on my last night in Rio.

The stomach pain woke me up. 

It was intense. Who knows how long whatever was causing it had been building up? But I knew there and then, that this was worse than any post-drinking bloatedness. Something was very wrong. “Get thee to the lavvie”, was my internal rallying cry.

I’ll spare you the graphic details, but it came in episodes and it came fast. I did what had to be done, be it sitting upright or getting down on all fours, using the moment to simultaneously pray that it would be over quickly.

None of it was pleasant, save for the lessening of the pain thereafter. But I’d been here before. It had always passed.

Then, the whole thing took a turn. 

Midway through my third kowtowing session, I looked down. There, resting on the bowl, was blood. It was but a streak, but a small amount of crimson that no doubt hadn’t come from the food. I’d heard this would require medical attention in the past, though I did consult with Doctor Google first.

Aye, pretty much every article said it would require a trip to the doctor. The hospital, even. NHS, private American clinics, general health sites… not one said this was anything normal.

Additionally, some said that blood in vomit could be dark brown in colour if it had been in the digestive system long enough. Part of my dinner the night before had been a bean sauce of a similar colour (feijoada), so this did muddy the waters a little, but I decided not to risk it. It should be said that I felt fine, after that episode, save for a bit of a sore throat.

I was fortunate enough to be able to find an English-speaking doctor. 

I could at the least count myself lucky that I’d gotten sick in Rio: this whole fiasco would have been much more awkward in less-touristy regions of Brazil. Though my Portuguese was OK at this point, it wouldn’t have been good enough to explain my situation.

After a bit of question time, a blood test and an antibiotics prescription, I was allowed to leave. None of the results showed anything concerning, and since then I’ve been absolutely fine. But still, better safe than sorry.

I got the bill a few days later.

It wasn’t an awful amount, only about £250. Had I had to pay this, it wouldn’t have been anything trip debilitating. Heavily inconvenient? Sure. But nothing that would have required me to go into masses of debt or cut my travels around Latin America short. After sending all bills and my policy certificate to my insurer, everything was tickety-boo in their eyes and I received the compensatory payment a few hours later.

The point I want to emphasise is…

I had done nothing wrong the previous day.

I’ve wondered what could have caused this many a time. I’d been to a boteco, a local bar, for both lunch and dinner. Both have many good reviews on Google, none of which mention food poisoning, and one had been recommended by a tour guide. Both were full of locals, office workers and families respectively, which is always a sign that a place is safe.

One of the two must have been a little less than clean in the kitchen that particular day. And I don’t mean for any of this to sound like an attack on Brazil: similar things have happened to me in Europe and Asia, through my own cooking, eating street food, being in sit-down restaurants and drinking dodgy cocktails. 

I do what can be done to avoid getting sick, prevention being better than cure and all that. But a fact of life is that on occasion, it’s a matter of “when” and not “if”. As are delays, theft, accidents and all other things travel insurance will protect you against.

Travel insurance. Get it, folks.