In the excitement of preparing for travel – especially travel that will take you to a foreign country – it is easy to overlook the small print on a travel insurance policy. But your coverage is spelled out in those documents, and although most of the legal language is hard to comprehend without a law degree and nearly impossible to read without a magnifying glass, it is important to understand. Otherwise you may pay premiums for travel insurance that does not give you the practical kinds of coverage you expect and need.

Buying travel insurance to cover you in the event of a medical emergency can be tricky, for instance, because the policy may not cover travel to certain countries that are considered less safe. Maybe you can only file a claim if you got a medical checkup and inoculations before your departure date. Or the policy may only cover the cost of getting a prescription filled or visiting an emergency room, when what you really want and need is to be flown back home in a special airborne ambulance – a service that can cost tens of thousands of dollars for a one-way trip.

Accident coverage, for example, might cover you if you lose a finger but not if you lose your whole hand. That may sound cold, calculated, grotesque, or just downright creepy – but the fact is that many policies contain very specific language regarding that kind of thing. Other types of insurance cover customers who have to cancel plans for some reason. But unless you qualify for the particular coverage being offered – exactly as it is stipulated in the policy – you’re out of luck and are also out whatever money you spent on the premiums.

Remember the heroic pilot who safely landed his aircraft in the Hudson River last year, saving the lives of everyone on board? Many of those people suffered trauma or injuries like concussions. Some of them have trouble sleeping, are experiencing memory loss, or are not able to work because of injuries or problems related to that crash landing. But they are also having trouble getting adequate compensation from the airline because the airline’s insurance company is reluctant to pay huge amounts of money for an event that was caused by ducks flying into an airplane – a freakish natural occurrence that cannot be blamed on human error or neglect.

If a major airline has problems with its travel insurance coverage, then an ordinary consumer cannot take anything for granted. So by all means you should scrutinize every word of your travel insurance policy before forking over money for premiums and expecting adequate, dependable coverage.