East Hartford, CT, April 12, 2010 – April can be a dreaded time of year for taxpayers as filing deadline approaches, but the season has a silver lining for many aspiring travelers who carefully plan a vacation purchase with their IRS tax refund. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced on April 2, 2010 that refunds are increasing based on its current tax refund statistics through March 26.

IRS reported that 66,587,000 taxpayers who filed thus far will receive an average $2,978 tax refund this year, an increase of 9.5% from the average $2,719 received last year. Additionally, the $204.2 billion in total tax refunds so far this year is up 3.9% from the cumulative $196.5 billion in tax refunds verified through March in 2009.

Travel Insured International, the leading independently-owned travel insurance provider, urges taxpayers electing to use their refunds to help pay for a 2010 vacation to protect their tax-return vacation investment with Travel Insurance. Travel Insured wants to raise taxpayer awareness that travel should be a rewarding, rejuvenating experience, but it will be a depressing one when a taxpayer blows an income tax refund by being forced to cancel a vacation for which they failed to obtain trip insurance coverage.

The popular online travel forum TripAdvisor.com, which attracts almost 45 million monthly consumer viewers according to comScore Media Metrix web traffic ratings, published results from its 2009 tax refund survey. TripAdvisor asked 1,710 readers: “Will you use any portion of your 2009 tax return for travel this year?” The answers were 46% “Yes” and 54% “No.”

Tax Refund Scam Advisory

Travelers awaiting their income tax refund before booking a trip can take a key first step by checking the Internal Revenue Service web site for helpful advice. Taxpayers click on “Where’s the refund?” to go to a status tool page for making a simple inquiry about their recently submitted return and its tax refund.

Be sure to check the “don’t fall for scams” IRS advisory which notes the following:

• IRS never initiates contact with taxpayers by Email.
• Do not reply to Emails from anyone claiming to be IRS or asking for tax info.
• Report any such Emails to the government link in the IRS site.
• Study the enclosed examples of phony IRS emails to learn to avoid scams.

Taxpayers protecting their vacation plans following tax season should include Trip Cancellation / Trip Interruption coverage, a key component of each plan from the Worldwide Trip Protector product line from Travel Insured International. The coverage will protect the hard-earned nest egg from IRS that helped fund their trip. Worldwide Trip Protector products ensure that if illness, an accident, a job loss, a travel supplier bankruptcy (in most plans), or other covered reason forces policyholders to cancel or cut short their trip.

If the worst happens, insured taxpayers will still see another refund, this time from Travel Insured. They can save their trip for another day when travel conditions are more favorable. A Travel Insured plan provides a cash refund for covered losses unlike many supplier plans that offer a credit toward the same trip, often with a rebooking deadline period within which the credit must be taken. The taxpayer who travels relaxed on a well-earned vacation after tax season is the one who travels insured with Travel Insured.