Alex Robertson: Left in Las Vegas

When it comes to travel insurance, the cheapest premium is not always the best. Photo / Thinkstock

Alex Robertson mulls over his lost expensive items before a victory with insurance.

I'd dropped the rental car and got to Las Vegas Airport with 25 minutes to spare before check-in closed. I watched the shuttle bus disappear in a cloud of blue smoke and stared down at my bags: large pack and two smaller packs - check. Where are the jackets?

I looked up again as the shuttle swept left around an elevated section of the road and away from the terminal building, and a vision of my two very expensive, high-tech fabric, hooded jackets lying on the back seat of the car loomed into view.

The next shuttle was in 15 minutes. Check-in closed in 25. There was no going back.

I tried calling the rental office once airside, but got a recorded message: the office closed at 5pm sharp and it was 5.03pm.

No worries. There's a dedicated form for lost property. This sort of thing happens all the time and the postage won't be that much.

The emailed reply came surprisingly quickly, in just three days: "I did check the log sheet for your items; I did not see any of them. Though we do try our best sadly at times we do not succeed. Again, please accept our apologies and we are sorry that we were not able to locate your items."

A quick calculation on the back of an envelope put the loss at just a little south of $1000 (I'd left my reading glasses in the car, too).

That's probably a lot less than most punters leave in Las Vegas, but more than a poor Herald employee can afford to drop in a hurried, can't-miss-the-plane moment.

Now, if there's one thing I can say for nearing the brow of the hill age-wise and being a responsible, husband, father, mortgage-owing, law-abiding, tax-paying member of society, it's the appreciation of insurance.

Dull, I know. But long gone are the days when it was enough to have the cash for a plane ticket and a little more for a back-street, just-above-flop-house hotel, one meal a day and three (maybe four) beers.

As soon as I get my dates for travel I jump on to comparetravelinsurance.co.nz to compare premiums and coverage.

You wouldn't think there could be so much variation but it pays to look carefully at what's on offer: the cheapest premium is not always the best. Premiums for two weeks' cover to the US varied from about $70 to nearly $200, but, when it comes to what you get back, especially for health and accident cover, the difference can run into hundreds of thousands.

For the past few years I've opted for an online company specialising in travel insurance backed by one of the world's largest providers: they're definitely not the cheapest, but have one of the best-looking policies around.

For instance, they offer full hospital cover and repatriation expenses should the unthinkable happen. And for those less painful, and less expensive, mishaps they offer full replacement, less the excess and depreciation.

Now I had to test the policy for real. But I wasn't disappointed: they've agreed to replace my stuff.