travel insurance don't go without it

[newfirsttimer]

All you Canadian cruisers, do you buy the travel and or medical insurance from the cruise lines (I think it is called TravelGuard) or do you have another preferred provider in Canada like RBC or Allianz? I have never purchased cancellation insurance in the past but always medical but the tab for next year's cruise is quite high so am seriously considering it. Who has coverage for cancellation for any reason? Thanks for your help and input.

[LHT28]

Originally Posted by newfirsttimer

All you Canadian cruisers, do you buy the travel and or medical insurance from the cruise lines (I think it is called TravelGuard) or do you have another preferred provider in Canada like RBC or Allianz? I have never purchased cancellation insurance in the past but always medical but the tab for next year's cruise is quite high so am seriously considering it. Who has coverage for cancellation for any reason? Thanks for your help and input.

I always buy trip Cancellation
we did have out of country medical through DH plan but he was going to lose that when he turned 65 so I bought a whole package
We found out after he would still have the out of country medical coverage...oh well ..we are covered now
It was an expensive package $1400. for the 2 of us but then the trip was $$$ also

It is the cancellation coverage that costs..based on the amount you could lose

I normally buy through PC financial bank but it is secondary coverage cannot remember what RBC is now

This time we bought primary policy from our TA
I would do some research & read the fine print

Lyn

[donaldsc]

Originally Posted by LHT28

I always buy trip Cancellation
we did have out of country medical through DH plan but he was going to lose that when he turned 65 so I bought a whole package
We found out after he would still have the out of country medical coverage...oh well ..we are covered now
It was an expensive package $1400. for the 2 of us but then the trip was $$$ also

It is the cancellation coverage that costs..based on the amount you could lose

I normally buy through PC financial bank but it is secondary coverage cannot remember what RBC is now

This time we bought primary policy from our TA
I would do some research & read the fine print

Lyn

How expensive was the trip? If, for sake of argument, the total cost was $14,000, you are making a 1 in 10 bet that you will cancel. If the trip was cheaper, the odds against you are even worse. In any case, I think that it is a bad bet unless you feel that there is a good chance that you might need to cancel.

Medical and evacuation is important. The rest, in my opinion, is a waste of money.

I will bet that the cruise companies and the TAs make more money from selling overpriced insurance than on the actual cruise.

DON

[LHT28]

Originally Posted by donaldsc

How expensive was the trip? If, for sake of argument, the total cost was $14,000, you are making a 1 in 10 bet that you will cancel. If the trip was cheaper, the odds against you are even worse. In any case, I think that it is a bad bet unless you feel that there is a good chance that you might need to cancel.

Medical and evacuation is important. The rest, in my opinion, is a waste of money.

DON

The trip is close to $18000.
It is not just the prospect of cancelling the trip but you could have a problem getting to the ship or during the trip

One never knows when things will happen
Our friend recently had to have an emergency appendectomy while on vacation ...could have been an expensive trip if not for insurance

To each his own

Lyn

[newfirsttimer]

Lyn, thanks for your input. I have always felt no need for the cancellation insurance, too expensive and hey, I'm going regardless....but as I get older and I see what happens to friends who travelled without it and either missed the ship because of flight delays or had to cancel last minute for non medical reasons like losing a job, I'm paying more attention to it. Sure it costs more, but when your trip is $10k and more, whats a few hundred bucks more for the peace of mind knowing that if something happens I won't risk losing all that money.

[stretchcruz]

It happened to me.....I had even started packing, had my private tours ready to go, my Priceline hotels, I never thought it would happen either, as I am in excellent health, but it did!

[LHT28]

Originally Posted by newfirsttimer

Lyn, thanks for your input. I have always felt no need for the cancellation insurance, too expensive and hey,

As we get older so does the cost of insurance
Over 65 it goes up over 74 it goes up considerably
Over 80 you sometimes cannot get insurance or it is as much as your cruise

It is all about your comfort level & what you are willing to lose if something should go wrong

Lyn

[Hlitner]

Thought we would add another perspective. DW and I have spent more then 2 1/2 years on cruises (both sea and river) and a lot more time on simple land driving trips (in Europe). Out of all those trips (probably over 100)....we have only taken out trip insurance once. That one time was only because DWs parents were very ill (we actually used that insurance since we had to cancel the trip due to a death). But if we had taken trip insurance on every trip our cost for that insurance would probably have neared $100,000 by now (over the years). We still travel about 5 months a year and trip insurance for those trips would cost more then $5000 per year (sometimes a lot more). So we have elected to purchase an annual travel medical policy (covers the first 60 days of anyt trip) that actually has better medical and trip evacuation coverage then most standard trip insurance packages. Total cost of that medical policy for 2 is less then $300 per year. We are not too concerned about our risk of losing the cost of a booked trip since that is a known amount of money (and limited) and we were going to spend that money anyway. But medical risk is virtually unlimited so it needs to be covered. If we ever did eat the cost of a trip we would still be 10s of thousands of dollars ahead of the game as opposed to buying costly trip cancellation policies.

Hank

[newlondon]

Hlitner, As I said in a previous post what you save in unused insurance more than covers the possible cancellation. You and I are absolutely in agreement; it doesn't make sense unless you have a possible special situation.

[PCruzer]

Originally Posted by SeaSickSue

I'm looking for specific recommendations (good or bad). Apparently you recommend Travel Guard as a provider. Are there other reputable providers for comparison ? Are there providers to definitely avoid ? Thanx.

Bewildered Bob

We always use TravelGuard. Mostly because the one time we had to make a claim, it was easy, there was no quibbling about what they would pay, and we had a check within 2-3 weeks.