I've always thought travel insurance was a scam — but it saved me $124 my first time using it

I can't even begin to count the number of times I've declined travel insurance when booking plane tickets. But when it came to Amtrak, horror stories of delays that I couldn't shake from my head convinced me it might be worth the investment for my cross-country trip this fall. Turns out I was right. The first train of my journey was delayed so long I missed my connection, and spent an unplanned night in Chicago. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As I booked a cross-country Amtrak journey this fall in pursuit of stories for Business Insider, there was a cacophony of horror stories I couldn't get out of my head.

Beyond anecdotal tales of massive delays, like the 183 passengers who were stuck on a train for 36 hours earlier this year, data shows these tales are far from outliers. My first train for this journey, the Lake Shore Limited, was on time just about 42% of the time last year, according to Amtrak's annual report.

So when the railroad's booking website hawked travel insurance for just $17 on my $900 fare, I bit the bullet and bought for the first time what I had long considered to be a scam and didn't think of it again. Here's how it ended up saving me $124. 

Original author: Graham Rapier