I'm still not sure where or how it happened that day in Florence, Italy. Our passports were securely in my purse but that evening, the leather envelope I carried them in was gone.

 Did I drop them at the Uffizi Gallery when we went through security? Did I leave them at the jewelry store on the Ponte Vecchio when I used my passport to complete the form entitling me to a tax refund on the gifts I'd just bought?

 Most likely, my pocket had been picked in what many warn is prime pickpocketing territory. Luckily, we didn't lose any credit cards or cash - just the passports and some itinerary information I'd stashed with them.

 "These pickpockets are very, very skilled," said Michael Ma, a consul at the U.S. consulate in Florence. "Even people who know better, are victims in Florence." And that includes me.

 According to Ma, the consulate processes 25 to 30 requests for new passports every week - more in summer when the city is crowded with tourists. So far this year, says U.S. State Department spokesman Steve Royster, some 108,000 Americans have reported their passports either stolen or lost; 310,000 passports were reported lost or stolen last year.

 At least some of these travelers were smart enough to have travel insurance. Significantly more claims are being filed with AIG Travel Guard (www.travelguard.com  (Related)   ), the nation's largest travel insurance company, including many from traveling college students, reports AIG spokesman Dan McGinnity, noting that new programs are being added this month to insure kids under 18 for free, when they travel with insured adults, and to protect them against identity theft.

 "In the height of the travel season, we get these claims on a daily basis," adds Sally Dunlop, a vice president for Travelex Travel Insurance (www.travelexamericas.com  (Related)   ).

 The travel insurance executives add that coverage, which typically costs 6%-7% of your trip, can not only help facilitate getting passports replaced - tell you how to get to the nearest consulate, or where to get new passport photos taken - but also cover at least some of the costs associated with getting a new passport ($97) or changing your itinerary.

 Still, let me tell you, nothing puts the breaks on an overseas vacation faster than losing your passport. Instead of leaving Rome with your cruise ship or catching your flight home from Barcelona, you're on a train for three hours headed for the nearest American consulate.

 TIP: Stash a few extra passport pictures for each member of the family in your luggage. We wasted an hour racing through the streets of Florence near the consulate looking for a place to get some taken. We'd E-mailed our passport numbers to ourselves, but didn't need them. It's ironic, though, that getting temporary passports (good for a year) in a foreign country proved a lot easier than getting one at home.

 Now that passports are required for Americans flying to the Caribbean, Canada and Mexico (next year they will also be required for cruises and car trips), the State Department is jammed with applications, on track to issue a record-breaking 17 million passports this year. That's why you've got to allow at least 10 weeks to get a passport, says Steve Royster of the State Department. And even if you pay $60 for expedited service, the process can still take several weeks. (To download an application for a U.S. passport, visit www.travel.state.gov  (Related)  .)

 Fortunately, we only had to wait a couple of hours. And if we hadn't gotten to the consulate at lunchtime, we would have had the passports even quicker.

 The rest of the trip, I kept my purse carefully zipped.