WHAT do I insure?

How much of the trip am I to get insurance for? Obviously, for the price of the Alaska cruisetour and the airfare to get there and back, but what else?

Are the excursions pre-paid, or will I be paying for them as we take them?

Do I insure the money we will be paying for gratuities, if we plan to pre-pay those?

What about things like airport parking?

We have elderly parents, and my biggest worry is that we would have to either cancel the trip entirely, or that we would have to leave our trip in the middle.

Also, when do I get the insurance? Someone mentioned within a certain amt. of days after we put a deposit down. I hadn't thought of that, since it will be a while till we get our airline tickets.

Any help you can give would be MUCH appreciated!

You insure that which you can't afford to lose. I wouldn't insure parking. Maybe tips, but probabaly not. Excursions, probably not.

Airfares, cruiuse fares for sure.

As far as the mechanics, go to insuremytrip dot com. Great place to get an idea what you can get.

Most people buy insurance to minimize or eliminate a possible loss. To cover minimal expenses is usually not worth it. For instance excursions from the ship. Except for a multi-night one like your cruise tour, I would not worry about them. The ones off the ship are refundable if cancelled within the specified time.

Most policies only cover pre-existing conditions if purchased within two weeks of booking. This means that if a parent has heart problems and you don't get the pre-exisiting condition coverage, the policy would not pay if that parent died of a heart attack during the trip. It would still cover for stroke.

You also need to get medical evacuation insurance. If you need to be air lifted off the ship and taken to the hospital, it could run you $30,000 and up.

Insurers will only reimburse you for pre-paid, non-refundable expenses. So if the pre-paid tips and excursions are refundable it's a waste of money to insure them.

After that, it depends on the insurer and your needs. For example, if you need coverage for pre-existing medical conditions you'll find many plans like this one from Travelex:

"The Pre-Existing Conditions exclusion is waived if You (a) enroll in this policy at the time You pay the deposit required for Your Covered Trip (or within 21 days of the initial Covered Trip deposit); (b) purchase this policy for the full cost of Your Covered Trip; and © are medically able to travel at the time the premium is paid."

So if you choose this plan and need the pre-existing medical condition coverage be very sure you're including everything that should be insured. Call the insurer if you have any doubt that you're doing it right.

Other insurers will let you cover as much of your trip cost as you'd like and will still offer the waiver of the pre-existing condition exclusion. For example, this one from TravelSafe:

"Waiver of the Pre-Existing Condition Exclusion (Only Available To Persons Under Age 80)

The exclusion for Pre-Existing Conditions will be waived if this plan is purchased within 21 days of the date Your initial Trip deposit is paid. Note : This waiver does not apply for persons age 80 or older."

Just meet that 21 day requirement and be under 80 and you've got the waiver.

Hi,

when it comes to insurance questions and answers, I have always valued and followed Cruiseco advice - thank you,( others please do not be offended).

Cruiseco, would you please explain primary and secondary coverage - many of us, especially if we are 'new' to buying insurance, might overlook that when we looking at the price alone.

Wes

Hi,

when it comes to insurance questions and answers, I have always valued and followed Cruiseco advice - thank you,( others please do not be offended).

Cruiseco, would you please explain primary and secondary coverage - many of us, especially if we are 'new' to buying insurance, might overlook that when we looking at the price alone.

Wes

"Primary" and "secondary" refers only to the order in which whatever coverage you have will pay.

Say you run up a $1000 bill with the ship's doctor and your regular health insurer WILL cover you during your trip:

1) If your travel insurance is "primary" you would file first with them. If the maximum benefit limit is at least $1000 you're done and your loss is covered 100%

2) If your travel insurance is "secondary" you would file first with your regular insurer, they will pay whatever they're going to pay (perhaps they pay $800 with a 20% co-pay) then you submit a claim for that $200 to the travel insurer and they pay that balance. Again, your loss is covered 100%

Same scenario but your regular health insurer DOES NOT cover you during the trip:

1) If your travel insurance is "primary" same as above. The travel insurer covers 100% of your loss

2) If your travel insurance is "secondary" you file your claim with your regular health insurance, they deny your claim, you submit the full $1000 bill to your travel insurer and your loss is covered 100%

As you can see, it's all a matter of convenience only. File twice or file once. Either way you're covered for 100% of your loss.

What's more important is what "primary" insurance is NOT. Many people think that with a "primary" insurer they can just present their travel insurance info to the doctor and the doctor will bill the insurer directly. Not so. Even if you have bought the Princess Cruise Line plan and are seeing the doctor on a Princess ship that's not going to happen. All travel insurance, "primary" or "secondary", is going to require that you pay the bill and submit it for reimbursement.

What if you can't pay the bill? Is a "primary" insurer a better choice? In an emergency some insurers will arrange direct payment to the doctor/hospital if you can't come up with the money and some won't. But whether they will or won't has nothing to do with them being "primary" or "secondary".

Here's from TravelSafe, a "secondary" insurer:

"Advance payment will be made to a Hospital, up to the Maximum Benefit Amount [with this plan it's $100,000], if needed, to secure Your admission to a Hospital, because of a covered Sickness or Injury. The Program Medical Advisor will coordinate advance payment to the Hospital."

And to confuse things more, some states require that even travel insurers that are normally "secondary" be "primary" if sold to residents of that state.

Because it's more convenient at claim time I guess if everything else is 100% equal (and it never is) I'd choose the "primary" insurer. But I wouldn't pay extra for it.

Cruiesco,

as always thank you for this explanation. I am sure that I am not the only one that will benefit from reading it.

The OP has mentioned his elderly parents so I thought it might be good for him to know the 'procedure'.

What you have explained happened to 'us'. I am guilty of not knowing much about insurance ( but I am learning from you), so when I bought it ..... I am all covered and beside that 'nothing will happen to me'.

Wrong...... we went on a cruise and wife got sick and had to spent a number of hours in the ship's medical - I am happy that they are there. On the way out when receiving the $950 bill I presented to them my INSURANCE, ...... nope, I had to pay and was told to deal with insurance on my own .....OK.

When we got home, I called the insurance - they asked if we had any other coverage.... yes we did: Medicare and another medical insurane that covers some things that medicare does not.

First we had to get an answer from Medicare ( they did not cover - and we knew that, but had to be in writing), then the second ( medical) insurance ..... they denied first, had to be appealed, and at the end my INSURANCE for the cruise went into effect. So I guess, if it was a 'primary' I would not have to go through that 'complicated' process.

Cruiseco, I am glad that you are still on this board. Thank you.

Wes

I always buy insurance when I make the final payment because before that date you can get your money back. I get coverage starting with my airline flight, not just the cruise itself.

We always do air and cruise

Thanks, everyone. You've helped a lot!

I usually get insurance thru travelguard and before purchasing the first time I called to ask what portion of my trip needed to be included in 'cost of trip'. The answer I received was 'anything you pay for before you walk out your front door'. That reply was simple and made perfectly good sense. I'd been trying to factor in the absolute entire cost - travel to embarkation, pre-cruise hotel, tips, etc, but many were expenses that if I didn't take the trip I wouldn't incur and since cost for insurance was based on 'cost of trip' I wanted to weed out anything I could!

We pay for our airline ticets with AMEX PLat which gives us luggage protection, medical protection and etc.

We only buy insurance to cover the cost of the cruise.

We can always cancel hotels and airlines without a loss.

HAL started their own insurance policy last summer which we now buy. You can buy it when you make final payment. You can cancel up to 24 hours for any reason before the cruise and get 90% of your cruise fare back. It works well -- I know because in February I fell the night before we were to fly to Ft Lauderdale and badly fractured my wrist. We had to cancel our cruise.

I use Access America and buy it w/i 14 days of paying the deposit to assure it covers pre-existing condition(s). I buy to cover luggage loss/delay, medical evac, etc., and include cost of airline tickets. Better safe than sorry. In years past, we didn't purchase because you could get your money back until so close to the date you cruise. We saw too many people get burned by last minute injuries, deaths in immediate family and problems with insurance not paying because pre-existing conditions weren't covered. We now pay for the insurance and purchase it EARLY.