Stacking travel insurance

The credit card used to pay for our cruise carries $1500 in travel insurance as a perk. Since this will only cover a fraction of the trip, is it appropriate to purchase additional insurance for only the difference between the cc coverage and the non refundable trip costs, or should I just cover the whole thing with private travel insurance? Has anyone had any experience doing this?

Depends upon what you want and how you want it.

IF you want any pre-existing medical conditions covered, then some/most/not all companies require you to cover the entire trip.

1. PRE TRIP coverage is largely coverage for trip cancellation. Your cc covers some because you used it to pay for the cruise. How badly you need trip cancellation coverages depends on the $$ cruise cost, risk of you cancelling--big unknown because anything could happen, and related to how close in to departure you are.

A supplemental travel insurance plan can be calculated for a trip cost that = cruise cost less cc coverage. This will reduce the premium/cost of your travel insurance policy but not by much. And there may be limitations to the coverage types--CFAR-cancel for any reason, etc.

CSA TRAVEL PROTECTION is affordable outright. You can use their website http://www.csatravelprotection.com to get different quotes based on the trip cost that you input (with or without your CC coverage amount). Their plans are outlined here:

http://www.csatravelprotection.com/plan-details

2. Its the IN TRIP coverages that your CC may not cover--like medical & evacuation which are the big costs if you cruise without travel insurance.

reviews.com has rated travel insurance companies.

The credit card used to pay for our cruise carries $1500 in travel insurance as a perk. Since this will only cover a fraction of the trip, is it appropriate to purchase additional insurance for only the difference between the cc coverage and the non refundable trip costs, or should I just cover the whole thing with private travel insurance? Has anyone had any experience doing this?

You should check with whichever insurer (or broker like TripInsuranceStore.com) you plan to purchase insurance from.

Or compare different policies for this specifically.

The way some policies are worded, for pre-existing condition exclusion waivers, is that ALL "non-refundable costs" must be insured, and with [this varies by policy] usually 14 or 21 days of each payment, starting with the first deposit (refundable or not).

So the question is: Is that "other insurance" considered some sort of refund of that amount of the trip cost, or not.

You do NOT want to pay for additional coverage *IF* not paying for this part of the insured amount would invalidate the entire policy (or a needed coverage such as that waiver).

Thank you all for the info and things to consider. I did purchase insurance for the cruise fare, minus the port charges. I will let the credit card insurance cover the excursions.