Yes, travel insurance is worth carrying for a trip through Parakou, Benin's main rail and road junction in the north-central part of the country and the usual gateway for travelers heading further north toward Pendjari National Park. The honest reason to carry cover here is distance from the country's stronger hospital facilities rather than any single dramatic danger, and a policy still absorbs the ordinary disruptions of unfamiliar systems and long overland travel.
Parakou has regional hospital services for routine care, but anything serious is typically referred south to Cotonou, Benin's economic capital and the country's main medical hub, several hours away by road or a short domestic flight. Confirm your policy covers treatment and transfer between Beninese cities, since the trip to Cotonou is the part most likely to involve real time and real cost if something goes wrong.
Benin is a malaria-endemic country, and standard pre-travel precautions - prophylaxis, repellent, and mosquito netting - are worth discussing with a travel clinic well before departure. Check that your policy covers treatment for mosquito-borne illness, since some basic policies quietly cap or exclude tropical-disease treatment that a Parakou-based itinerary could realistically need.
The Harmattan, a dry, dust-laden wind that blows down from the Sahara roughly November through February, regularly reduces visibility and occasionally disrupts flights across West Africa, including connections through Parakou and Cotonou. Trip-delay cover is worth checking if your travel dates fall within this window, since dust-related delays are a routine seasonal occurrence rather than a rare event.
Keep any clinic paperwork from Parakou and Cotonou, prescription receipts, and documentation of any referral between the two cities, since claims spanning both need clear records for each leg. Check whether your existing health cover extends abroad and specifically to Benin before relying on it, since many home plans stop well short of covering West Africa.