Berkely insurance

[Paulal]

Hi
Has anyone used Berkely travel insurance. When Oceania quoted me a price for a cruise, they automatically included Berkely insurance in their quote. I sssume do not have to take it( i will ask when I call back) but since they seem to recommend it and push it, I was wondering if many people use them and is it good. Berkely's website is not very helpful for comparison purposes with other insurances such as Travelguard.
Also, do most of you use your own TA, or have you ever gone direct with Oceania? I received a great mailing with great prices, so I called them direct. When I looked on various websites, no one offered the same deal.
Thanks for your help.

[donmimi]

We use Yahoo Travel rather than a local TA for many of our trips; and they provide Berkely Travel Insurance as their insurance option. My husband was taken ill a day before we were to leave on a 3 week trip to Australia that included a 2 week cruise with Princess and was hospitalized. We notified Berkely sometime the next week after his crisis had passed; altho we did notify Yahoo, and through them, Princess immediately. We received full repayment for our trip within a few weeks of submitting our claim and the Berkely customer service personnel were terrific. So, we are most satisfied with them. I don't worry about nickel and dime pricing differences among the various companies; I want to know that if another emergency occurs prior to a trip, I will the same kind of help I got from Berkely; which allowed me to concentrate on what was important.

Mimi A (Don and Mimi of CT)