Your thoughts on Travel Insurance

Just wondering if Travel Insurance is really a necessity. Do you buy it thru HAL or thru something Travel Guard or Insuremytrip? We are doing a short Caribbean Cruise and thought it may be worthwhile having in case of an accident or injury.

I can’t imagine cruising without it anymore. It helps on various levels, but of the 16 cruises I’ve taken, I’ve gotten sick twice (norovirus caught on board) and the medical facility bills alone were worth it. I didn’t have it one time and the medical bills totaled over $750 from the ships doctor. I had to cancel at the last minute once due to the sudden death of my mother and I ended up getting back most of the cruise fare because I had insurance. It’s well worth the peace of mind.

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For cruises, I always buy travel insurance. My husband and I are not prepared to take the financial hit of thousands if the trip needs to be cancelled, and don't want the worry of medical expenses if one of us gets hurt outside the country.

We purchase through USAA as we are members (I believe they are Travel Guard policies) and consider the $150-200 cost simply a part of the cost of vacationing.

Yes..protect your investment. Insuremytrip will cost you less than $150 depending on your costs. You just never know about illness, weather, traffic, or flight delays.

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For cruises, I always buy travel insurance. My husband and I are not prepared to take the financial hit of thousands if the trip needs to be cancelled, and don't want the worry of medical expenses if one of us gets hurt outside the country.

 

We purchase through USAA as we are members (I believe they are Travel Guard policies) and consider the $150-200 cost simply a part of the cost of vacationing.

Well put -- it's simply the part of the cost of travelling. I would not leave for any vacation (or business travel for that matter) without travel insurance, and I've bought it for my kids when they go travelling, for my own peace of mind.

I have always bought it, just considered it part of the fare and was I glad I had a habit.

My sister ended up with a heart attack on Dominica; I guess it was almost two years ago. It took us 2 days to get off the island due to limited flights(hotel, last minute flights home; carnival medical center fees; the "clinic" or whatever it is didn't bill which is a good thing since it was apalling and we only found out it was a heart attack after arriving home and getting checked out).

I can only think we ended up in the free clinic due to conditions there no sheets, pillows, rusted out beds and bathroom flooded. Made me greatful for what we have at home. Felt much safer at the hotel where we could call a doctor if she worsened since I ended up paying extra for a very nice hotel for the quiet mainly. Carnival medical care was actually excellent on the ship and I understood why we had to be put off the ship since they had to leave and she wasn't improving, but hope never to experience that again. I love Dominica but not for medical care for sure.

Of course the other piece of advice I'm glad I followed was having credit cards available with a high enough limit to cover the costs since trip insurance doesn't pay until after.I was able to keep her in a quiet hotel until we could get a flight home (it was Carnival and no way she could walk up the steps at the first suggested hotels) . I still have nightmares of what it would have been like to be stuck without the money to make the arrangements. As it was things worked out, painfully but they did work out

Ended up after lots of paperwork the trip insurance paid back the close to $4000 with flights, taxi, hotel, our port guide who assisted us the three days etc etc. Definitely paid for all the travel insurance fees I have paid out.

I buy mine through insuremytrip though I always seem to end up with Travelex or Travelsafe after looking over the options. I like having it primary insurance so I don't have to put all the paperwork through the primary insurance at home first.

Would not take a cruise without it. We had to cancel our cruise in November when my wife’s cancer trial drugs stopped working and she had to start a new trial. We were reimbursed 100% of our costs with very little paperwork. Purchased our insurance through Squaremouth.

Maury

We were on our 15th cruise (always with insurance) when we found ourselves being disembarked at Colon and transferred to a hospital in Panama City, Panama due to hubby's sudden illness. Thankfully it was something minor (not a heart attack!), and we were able to return home using regular airline, not air ambulance. Cost $10,000 - totally covered by insurance. It just takes 1 incident to make you grateful you had purchased it without question.

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

I knew I wanted travel insurance, but I obsessed for every planned cruise that I was not getting the right insurance plan or I was paying too much. Now than I am retired and plan to cruise more often , I decided to get a year of medjet assist for evacuation and the annual GeoBlue trekker plan for medical. Medical and evacuation are my primary concerns, so I know I’m covered for those. My trips are rarely more than $5k so if my Chase card wouldn’t cover the cancellation or trip interruption for some reason, I can live with that.

For cruises, I always buy travel insurance. My husband and I are not prepared to take the financial hit of thousands if the trip needs to be cancelled, and don't want the worry of medical expenses if one of us gets hurt outside the country.

 

We purchase through USAA as we are members (I believe they are Travel Guard policies) and consider the $150-200 cost simply a part of the cost of vacationing.

Ditto on that!. The security of knowing that the financial cost of any emergencies can be handled is great assurance.

There are several consolidators (Squaremouth.com, insuremytrip.com, tripinsuranncestore.com) where you can easily shop and compare policies.

There are 2 criteria that are most important to us, that its Primary Medical Insurance and has Medical Evacuation coverage.

Primary Medical Insurance costs a little bit more, but I'd rather not have to deal with the hassles of multiple submissions dealing with Secondary Insurance, especially as if I'm out of country, my insurance covers very little.

OK thanks for all the replies. I did buy some from Travel Guard but I was having buyers remorse. It wasn't that expensive ( in the range mentioned above) and I know it's only a pittance compared to the trip costs. I was just wondering if others insist upon it and I haven't seen one no. Thanks!

Some credit cards cover this, do they not?

That is, if you use the card to book everything?

Just one helpful tip beyond saying yes you should get insurance. I go to insuremytrip.com and get an idea of what I need. Then I call and talk to one of their customer service people. They really know what they’re doing and all of the various coverages that are available. Cost-wise your age and the price of the cruise and type of coverage determines what you pay. To cover preexisting conditions you need to buy your insurance with a certain time frame from when you book (place first payment) so keep that in mind as well. It’s money well spent and I hope to never need it but rest assured it’s there just in case.

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We never cruise without it.

We were to leave for a 7 day cruise on Dec 9th - on Dec 5th DH had a heart problem that put him in the hospital for a procedure. We had even been to his Dr the week before and everything at that time was fine and the Dr wished us well for our cruise.

From a communication yesterday from the Insurance company (btw ... we always use an independent company as the ship policies don't have very high payouts and we're no longer young and healthy:() - We will be getting back everything we spent including an independent tour we'd booked and paid a non-refundable deposit of $70 for a private tour with a historical guide.

We have a jewel of a travel agent and always go with who she recommends as she knows who's good to work with at the time. The day DH was admitted to the hospital I emailed her that we had to cancel and she took care of cancellations, getting me the insurance forms and re-sending me any documents I had to submit for the insurance. It was so nice to know somebody had my back :)

If you had a love one pas away on a ship you would always make sure you have aproviate insurance.

Some credit cards cover this, do they not?

That is, if you use the card to book everything?

Credit cards perks are generally only for Trip Interruption/Cancellation. I'm not aware of ones that provide Medical Insurance/Evacuation. I could be wrong, just not aware of any.

Some credit cards cover this, do they not?

That is, if you use the card to book everything?

https://www.chase.com/card-benefits/sapphirereserve/travel

Trip Cancellation / Trip Interruption Insurance

Baggage Delay Insurance

Trip Delay Reimbursement

Lost Luggage Reimbursement

Travel and Emergency Assistance

Travel Accident Insurance

Emergency Evacuation & Transportation

Emergency Medical and Dental Benefit

This post may have been entered by voice recognition. Please excuse any typographical errors.

Chase United Plus Club card provides unlimited medical evacuation, 20K trip interruption/cancellation and other benefits. If you travel at least 2 to 3 times a year on United (which we do) this is a great card.

We always buy insurance.

And we have had to cancel several times for various reasons.

We also buy refundable air fare and the hotels we stay at know us well enough that if we have to cancel at the last minute, they don;t charge us even a small fee for late cancellation.

Ditto to most of the comments above! Great piece of mind and did have to eat almost $2000 we lost on a Kauai beach hose rental the one time we decided to book with insurance and eventually had to cancel the trip to unforeseen health issue. We done a far bit of comparison shopping but are also big fans of the policies we always get thru our USAA membership. Think this is a very personal comfort matter, and there are no general solutions. Good luck in your decision!

ARRGGHHH!!! Darned Apple, did it again. Guess i need to be more careful and proofread my comments. What I meant--lost money on a house in Kauai--not a hose. And obviously meant we did NOT have insurance on this trip. Ouch!

I love insurance. I travel often enough that I have it as a rider on my home insurance. I broke my foot once walking across the street to Disneyland and the out of network cost for the MRI would have been $3000 alone. I've also been reimbursed for a trip that I had to cancel due to a hurricane. If your flight it cancelled the insurance will cover food and lodging if you have to wait over night. Like all insurance, you hope you never need it. A lot can go wrong. I prefer to have the peace of mind knowing I am covered.

There is no One Size Fits All when it comes to travel insurance....

The HAL Cruise Protection Plan is good for many, especially because it does not have a pricing system based on age or pre-existing conditions. They have 2 types - the basic plan coverage which is for cruise cancellation and ends 24 hrs before departure time. Or the Platinum(?) plan which includes coverages while on the cruise.

Credit cards may offer you cancellation coverage, trip delays and lost baggage coverages.

Other organizations offer Evacuation and Repatriation of Remains coverages. Note that Evacuation coverage is for when there is no appropriate medical facility available to treat you and you have to be sent to somewhere else.

Many health insurance coverages, including supplemental plans to medicare participants, do cover out of the country medical expenses but at a reduced rate or at the out of network rates.

We use a mix of types of insurances, and it varies depending on length of travel and general proximity to potential medical facilities - for example we carried more insurance for our 48 nights in the South Pacific and for our 48 nights around South America than for our 49 nights in the Mediterranean.

For some potential expenses we are willing to self-insure, and having done business like this for many years we're ahead even if we have to absorb some costs at some point... for example we paid $550 on our last cruise for on-ship medical visits, but that is far, far less than the insurance would have cost us over the years. We did have other types of coverages if needed on that trip, especially for Evacuation/Repatriation and trip interruption etc, but we relied on our basic medical which is pretty good.

So, good for you for asking and exploring about it, it's a very complex topic and different for each person's situation and tolerance. m--

Credit cards perks are generally only for Trip Interruption/Cancellation. I'm not aware of ones that provide Medical Insurance/Evacuation. I could be wrong, just not aware of any.

Ok, thanks! I do have trip insurance with my health insurance plan.

I guess I’ll be checking for coverage amounts :confused:

We always buy trip insurance with primary medical insurance coverage. Our US based health insurance has no limits on "out of network" coverage, so it would be worthless outside a 150 mile radius of our home. We also have MedJet Assist [AARP members get a small discount] with the hopes that we could get back "in network" quickly should we become ill in the US.