Insurance?

[DenNJill]

We'll be sailing HAL in 1 month ... opted not to take the insurance.
I'm now wondering if that was wise?
I'm not so much worried about not being able to go on the cruise as much as I am concerned about a late incoming flight (We didn't book the flight thru HAL) - we have about 3 hours between the time we arrive @ the airport and the time we embark. We do have transfers purchased.
Just curious if we amongst the few not taking insurance?
As always --- thanks in advance!!

;)

[Krazy Kruizers]

We always buy insurance - not the cruise lines - you never know what can happen - especially with the airlines.

[FlorenceItaly]

is if I have to be air lifted off the ship for medical reasons. I hear medi vac costs $25,000 PLUS. It's not too late for you to get insurance. Go to www.insuremytrip.com


Marie

[tnkrbell13]

I've yet to buy insurance for any of my vacations, this is the first cruise. We sail tommorrow and I am arriving in the morning, 6 hours before we sail. We did book our cruise late though, I think If I had booked months in advance I would probably purchase it.
I figure if something life shattering happens between now and tomorrow, I won't really care about the lost money. But then again I booked an inside guarantee:rolleyes:

[jhannah]

All insurance is a gamble. A numbers game. The insurance companies almost always come out the financial winners. However, the money we spend on our cruise vacations is way more than I care to risk throwing away. Should something happen at the last minute to prevent us from sailing, we'd simply have to forfeit all we've paid. I'm not comfortable assuming all that risk. I purchase insurance soon after I book a cruise.

[ASue]

Insurance is a numbers game I agree. My mom and I booked a cruise almost a year in advance. Three days before we were to leave she went into the hospital. I was sure glad we had the insurance. We booked our airfare and transfers ourselves. I called the airlines and transfer co. to cancel and was told if I sent a note from the Dr. they would refund all my money also. So was glad we had the insurance.

[CruisinNana]

I always purchase insurance. Something I found out, however, occurred when I was traveling with girlfriends rather than my husband. Something happened and I could not go on the trip. My roommate could go on the trip with the other women who were booked in other cabins....2 women to a cabin. I was able to get my money back, but my roommate was not allowed to keep the cabin as a single without paying the single supplement. I opted to just pay it for her so she could go since it wasn't her fault that I couldn't go. In other words, I paid for the insurance, but I also paid the single supplement so my friend could go. Something just didn't seem right about that! Have any of you had a similar experience?

[peaches from georgia]

Did you have HAL's cancellation policy? If so, I guess I can see why they wanted the single supplement because HAL had reimbursed you for your fare (or part of it) and therefore lost that $.

HOWEVER, if you had 3rd party insurance HAL didn't lose a dime of your fare as you were reimbursed by an outside insurance co. and HAL still had your entire fare. Therefore, to HAL they had been paid in full by 2 pax, regardless of whether you went or not, so why should they demand a single supplement from your friend.

[CruisinNana]

Did you have HAL's cancellation policy? If so, I guess I can see why they wanted the single supplement because HAL had reimbursed you for your fare (or part of it) and therefore lost that $.

HOWEVER, if you had 3rd party insurance HAL didn't lose a dime of your fare as you were reimbursed by an outside insurance co. and HAL still had your entire fare. Therefore, to HAL they had been paid in full by 2 pax, regardless of whether you went or not, so why should they demand a single supplement from your friend.

Since I have had medical problems and I am not in my "prime" anymore, I now get third party insurance coverage because of the pre-existing clauses, etc. I think the time I had the problem, I had HAL coverage.... (It was many years ago...and I don't remember.....another problem with not being in my "prime"!!!!!!) Perhaps you have pointed out another good reason for getting a third party insurance company to cover a trip when traveling with friends.

[COLandlocked]

We had booked a cruise for January on Royal Carribean. Two days before the cruise my husband ended up in the hospital after a normal household accident (tripped down the stairs). To make a very long story short, we were reimbursed for every penny we had paid, even airfare and hotel cancellation fees. It took time and some effort but everything was reimbursed. We immediately booked our trip on HAL and what a wonderful trip it was.

So things do happen for a reason. And yes, buy the insurance as you never know what can happen.

[torpeedo]

Even if you have insurance you really don't want to miss your cruise!! I never come in the day of the cruise. Always the day before. If you can change your flight with no big penalty, I would definitely do that..

[lougee1043]

I've yet to buy insurance for any of my vacations, this is the first cruise. We sail tommorrow and I am arriving in the morning, 6 hours before we sail. We did book our cruise late though, I think If I had booked months in advance I would probably purchase it.
I figure if something life shattering happens between now and tomorrow, I won't really care about the lost money. But then again I booked an inside guarantee:rolleyes:

insurance covers the days between your final payment and the sailing-- if something happened to you or an immediate family member after final payment and you had to cancel the insurance would reimburse you

you are forgetting the fact that if something happens to you on the ship or ashore during the sail you most likely have no personal insurance to cover you for any costs that occur ---- as posted -- a med evac can cost 25 k------------------thats what insurance is for

[mrblack]

We don't take the insurance. Like jhannah says "All insurance is a gamble. A numbers game." We have a very good extended health plan which covers us when we are out of the country on holiday. As for the holiday and missed ships or whatever, we always plan to arrive the day before because we usually are travelling from on side of the continent and one end of it to the furthest most point in winter. Completely losing our money on one trip isn't going to kill us. And as Canadians we tend to be the most over insured people on the earth. We were recently in the US and renting a car and my husband looked at the basic insurance policy that comes with the rental and he was appalled at what they called insurance coverage. :D

[cruisequeen10]

You must purchase the cancellation insurance when you make your final payment. This cannot be bought after that.

[bala girl]

CruisinNana - is it possible that you had insurance from the cruise line you were sailing with, but your roomate did not, so she wasn't protected against the single supplement?
We were having an insurance discussion on the rollcall for one of the Noordam's sailings out of Rome this summer. For years I managed international employee benefit plans (mostly healthcare)for expats of large companies, so I have some first hand knowledge on the subject. Healthcare in the vicinity of Noordam's E. Med itinerary falls way short of most Americans' expectations, and their ability to deal with major accidents/illness is limited at best. While some can handle losing the price of the cruise if you had to cancel before sailing, the evacuation cost is another matter. Most evacuations I saw were due to severe accidents, or sudden health problems on otherwise healthy people. And $25,000 for an evac is at the low end of the potential cost. Your domestic healthplan here in the US doesn't cover foreign evacs, nor does Medicare. Think about this when you decide whether you need insurance or not.

[Zeta3]

We always get insurance. We were on a cruise that was majorly delayed returning to port such that we missed our return flight home. We were able to book new flights and insurance covered the cost. We saw many others in our situation who had to pay for their new flights out of their own pockets. We were very happy to have our insurance as the new flights were much more expensive.

[dotheyes]

get the insurance. We have been on 6 cruises and used insurance 3 times. 2 times because of delays and one because of lost luggage. I now keep a list of what is in my luggage

[HALOnlyCruiser]

Insurance...don't leave home without it!
We always get TravelGuard, not the HAL insurance, and after paying $$$$ for a cruise, it seems silly not to pay $ to insure it. Twice we've used it and it has paid for the cost of all the previous policies. To wit:
1) When DH had to stay behind last year on the Canada/New England cruise, we were already in penalty with HAL, but TravelGuard not only paid us the entire cost (cruise, air and hotel) Hal kept for being in penalty, but paid the difference between our daughter being moved up from the 3rd person in the cabin to the 2nd; a difference of over $1000.
2) In 2004, my luggage did not make it to Vancouver with us (another reason I will in future try not to fly on sailing day) and TravelGuard paid for all the stuff I had to buy on board to get me by. I will say that HAL, even though it wasn't their fault, very graciously loaned me clothes from the rental program for the formal night, and did my laundry for free. The bag caught up with us in Ketchikan (first stop), but I would have forked over my own $$ for the interim wardrobe if not for TravelGuard. Not a real deal breaker, but I still swear by insurance, and recommend it. If you buy TravelGuard within 14 days of booking, they cover anything having to do with a pre-existing condition...a lot of other insurance companies won't cover that under any circumstances. I know there are plenty of folks on the ill-fated 4-days to Vancouver last week who wished they'd had it.

[CruisinNana]

CruisinNana - is it possible that you had insurance from the cruise line you were sailing with, but your roomate did not, so she wasn't protected against the single supplement?


We were having an insurance discussion on the rollcall for one of the Noordam's sailings out of Rome this summer. For years I managed international employee benefit plans (mostly healthcare)for expats of large companies, so I have some first hand knowledge on the subject. Healthcare in the vicinity of Noordam's E. Med itinerary falls way short of most Americans' expectations, and their ability to deal with major accidents/illness is limited at best. While some can handle losing the price of the cruise if you had to cancel before sailing, the evacuation cost is another matter. Most evacuations I saw were due to severe accidents, or sudden health problems on otherwise healthy people. And $25,000 for an evac is at the low end of the potential cost. Your domestic healthplan here in the US doesn't cover foreign evacs, nor does Medicare. Think about this when you decide whether you need insurance or not.

We absolutely had the same insurance. We used the same TA and both opted for the same coverage.... I was too ill to argue and I didn't want my friend to miss the cruise....

Wow! That's important information to know about the international travel. Thanks so much!

[MMastell]

The cost of trip cancellation or lost luggage is not the main reason that purchase insurance, it is for the medical and evacuation portion of the insurance. I can afford to eat the cost of the cruise and the contents of my luggage however the the five or six figures that it may cost me for being evacuated from a cruise ship at sea or the cost of being hospitalized in a forging port and having my wife or other family member stay with me is more than I ever care to spend. Also the cost of transporting me to an American or European hospital can be extremely expensive. This is also covered under most policies.

This is why I purchase cruise insurance. Plus I have pre-existing conditions and I purchase the insurance as soon as I book the cruise in order to be covered for the pre-existing conditions.

Insurance is always a gamble and you may purchase it for fifty cruises and never need it but there is always that one cruise where you do and when you do it will pay for all the times you didn't.

Overall, it's a worthwhile investment.

Take care,
Mike

[DenNJill]

Even if you have insurance you really don't want to miss your cruise!! I never come in the day of the cruise. Always the day before. If you can change your flight with no big penalty, I would definitely do that..

I think we will change our flight from the day of the cruise to the day before.
NOW my question is --- since we have purchased a transfer from the airport to the port, do we just go back to the airport on the sail day to take the transfer??
:rolleyes:
I will be making a call to HAL tomorrow to verify things and then calling the airlines to change flights.
One thing I will say among all of this is ... NEXT TIME we'll use a TA instead of using an online service!! I have found a few things that have not made sense that the online customer service rep did .... she had asked if we wanted window seats while flying - it was not a big deal but I said "Yes, if available". Well ... I hadn't gotten any flight info so one day decided to check our seats - DH and I definately did get window seats --- DH on one side of the plane and myself on the other!! :eek: When I changed seats, the airline rep couldn't believe it'd been booked that way!!!

[Travelbug 2]

I would never travel without insurance.

We do have a good private health ins' and I always buy cancelation Ins' at time of booking. It is a small price to pay for peace of mind.

No one can forcast that "nothing will happen" and the small amount for the premium compared to the cost of the cruise ----------- it is not worth the risk IMO.

Different strokes for different folks, that is what makes the world go round.

[wander]

CrusinNana,

When something similar happened to my roomate and I (she was hospitalized 48 hrs before the cruise, needing urgent surgery) her insurance covered her loses and MY insurance would either: (1) reimburse me for the expenses if I stayed home OR (2) cover the single supplement if I went on the cruise. Due to the circumstances I opted to go on the cruise. While I had to pay the single supplement when I boarded, I got full reimbursement from the insurance company after I was able to submit a claim along with her paperwork where the Doctor said she could absolutely not go on the cruise. Once we submitted our respective claims we were reinbursed in a very timely manner. Have her check her policy.

[SpuddGirl]

[quote=DenNJill]NOW my question is --- since we have purchased a transfer from the airport to the port, do we just go back to the airport on the sail day to take the transfer??

To answer the Q re: airport transfers, yes, if you have purchased them thru HAL, just go back to the airport to the baggage claim area and proceed as if you had just arrived. DH and I did this recently with no problems. The cruiseline reps don't ask you when you arrived so that does not matter.

Regarding flying in the day of cruise vs. day before, we just automatically add in extra $$ to our cruise budget for hotel, meals and car rental, though the car is not a necessity, its just what we prefer. We budget in about $250 for this. And we also consider the travel insurance as part of the cruise. It costs us less than $150 for both DH and I to insure our airfare and a balcony stateroom at TravelGuard's pre-existing condition rate. WELL WORTH THE COST. YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHAT CAN HAPPEN.

Also, if you are planning on flying in on embarkation day during this years thunderstorm season, there was a great article in USA Today about travel delays:

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2006-05-12-storms-summer-travel_x.htm

Something to think about.....

Sue

[Robinsilver]

When I first started cruising with my family, I took the insurance in case one of the boys got sick before we left and we had to cancel. However, I soon learned that there was another value in that insurance. When we were in St. Martin on a RCCL cruise, my husband was injured on a jet ski. We first went to the hospital in Marigot for x-rays. Sure we had great insurance, but you will not get coverage if the treatment is not coded properly, and if you can find a way to get a hospital in St. Martin to code their charges for american insurance companies, please let me know. Ditto for the ship's charge for keeping my husband in the infirmary before he could be medi-vac'd home. We did not use the cruise insurance for that, because they would have only taken him to Miami. The American Express Platinum Card (the real one, not the platinum optima) took him back to New York. At the time, we also had an excellent policy, but one where we had to call our primary care physician first, and we didn't. After $500 in ship phone calls that RCCL made us pay, that was not covered, we called our orthopoedist, so the hospital, which was Special Surgery in Manhattan, was only covered for 80%, as was the doctor. These days, many of the top doctors in NY do not take any plan, so you have your deductible plus what the insurance will not cover of their charge. We got all this back from the cruise insurance, including some at-home items that our insurance did not cover.
Needless to say, I would never cruise without insurance again. You could just as easily fall while walking in town, whatever, and need the same thing. Anyone can do that, and if you think you can't, you must be someone special.

[NancyIL]

We absolutely had the same insurance. We used the same TA and both opted for the same coverage.... I was too ill to argue and I didn't want my friend to miss the cruise....

Wow! That's important information to know about the international travel. Thanks so much!

My sister and I were supposed to go on a cruise last year. She cancelled 4 days before because her husband required bypass surgery - but I still cruised. My single fare was a bit less than what the two of us paid together, because there were no taxes for a 2nd person to pay. My sister filed a claim and was reimbursed for the cost of her cruise minus the taxes which were refunded to her.

[CruisinNana]

My sister and I were supposed to go on a cruise last year. She cancelled 4 days before because her husband required bypass surgery - but I still cruised. My single fare was a bit less than what the two of us paid together, because there were no taxes for a 2nd person to pay. My sister filed a claim and was reimbursed for the cost of her cruise minus the taxes which were refunded to her.

NancyIL, did you have HAL insurance or an independent insurance company? If I understand you correctly, you had to pay more (not exactly double, but what is equivalent to the single supplement???) to keep a single cabin and your sister was refunded....right?

[MrLee]

Interesting topic. I was supposed to leave last saturday for a 17 day cruise to Italy. Instead I'm sitting at home with a broken hip. Sure am glad I got the insurance!;)

[NancyIL]

NancyIL, did you have HAL insurance or an independent insurance company? If I understand you correctly, you had to pay more (not exactly double, but what is equivalent to the single supplement???) to keep a single cabin and your sister was refunded....right?

Our insurance was from Travelex. I paid nothing extra out-of-pocket ...it was just a bookkeeping change. The total for one single was less than double occoupancy by about $40 - which was the amount of taxes for the 2nd person. My sister filed the claim for her portion of the cruise less the amount credited to me for her taxes.