Trip Insurance

Travel Agents can sell a policy from Allianz that includes pre-existing coverage even if purchased at final payment. IME it usually runs about 8.5% of the covered costs. We prefer this policy over any cruise-line policy because it pays 100% and in cash -- we had to cancel a trip this year for health reasons and the process was smooth and quick. Thankfully the health issue is resolved, and we are 100% whole on the money issue!

Another vote for Allianz. We had to cancel a river cruise last year due to medical, and I had my money back from Allianz within three weeks of filing the required paperwork.

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Another vote for Allianz. We had to cancel a river cruise last year due to medical, and I had my money back from Allianz within three weeks of filing the required paperwork.

Yes, we also had good service the two times we had to file a claim. The first time was just for the ship's doctor bill for a minor injury -- I filed with Medicare first but Allianz told me they would have paid as primary. The second time was a cancellation of an expensive package for medical reasons -- we got back every penny. As someone said above, there are so few claims that it's hard to tell whether the policies are really as good as they seem -- we found that Allianz was good.

I used Allianz purchased through my TA for many years. From posts in CC I began using insuremytrip and square mouth - Allianz can be quite expensive compared to other options. insuremytrip allows you to do side-by-side comparisons of coverages and costs of multiple plans. I began using Nationwide a couple cruises ago, and last summer I had to cancel an expensive cruise two weeks before departure due to a medical problem.

To make a long story short, I received payment for the full amount of my claim without any questions or problems within 3 weeks of claim submission. Both insuremytrip and Nationwide were kind and helpful when contacted over the phone too.

The Allianz policy I used required purchase of the insurance within 14 days of deposit to obtain pre-existing condition coverage. Nationwide can be purchased later with pre-existing coverage.

With this experience, I know I will always purchase trip insurance, and I know who I will buy it from. I also posted a review on insuremytrip and a couple other places here on CC.

I have no personal experience of Viking but our very good friends were on one of their cruises when he became very ill although not enough to require medivacing home, but it was touch and go. There son flew out to assist his mum and Viking found him accommodation on board to finish their cruise together. Their insurance because of his pre-existing problems was full on so Viking were superb. That said sorry would not travel with them. CA

Since we are very healthy, with no pre-existing conditions (age 68/62) and never get sick, and it seems unlikely that illness would interfere with our cruise, does trip insurance costing 8-10% of the trip cost make much sense, particularly as we could easily absorb the loss. Would other adverse factors outside our control warrant the purchase of trip insurance anyway. What are the odds of a flight/cruise cancellation? TIA :)

The loss of the cost of your trip is one thing. What about an accident that requires you to be medivac'ed home? That is very expensive.

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I was a very healthy 67 with no pre-existing conditions until I wasn't. Never got sick. As my handyman used to say "everything works fine until it breaks".:eek:

We bought trip insurance (and never had to use it before, thankfully) because we travel internationally a couple times a year. Medicare won't cover us outside US, and as many others have said medical evacuation is very expensive. Between the two costs, I wouldn't want to try to cover it out of pocket. The cost of insurance for the trip comes 'free' with the medical coverage.

Now I am a fairly healthy 68 with a healthy respect for the cost of becoming suddenly ill. Gratefully, I have never been quite as smugly self-assured as others in this thread. In earlier years, a family member was in an auto accident in France and I was the one with a passport. Those of you immune to such problems clearly have no need for trip insurance. For the rest of you, insuremytrip offers an easy way to compare and buy trip insurance. And Nationwide delivered when I needed it. Just sayin'...

Well we traveled for a number of years without taking out insurance and we got by. We were 63and 65 when we took out insurance on a very expensive river cruise followed by an ocean cruise a few days afterwards. Our plans were to travel in Europe for a week pre cruise. We took out insurance within two weeks of booking the first cruise so we were covered for pre existing conditions even though we did not have any at the time.

Ok now fast forward 14 months when I had to have an unexpected foot surgery to take out a plate that was causing problems two weeks prior to leaving for Europe. The surgeon advised us that it would not be a smart idea to be leaving one day after having sutures removed for an extended Europe cruise. He recommended very strongly that we wait for six weeks. Hence we began the process of cancelling this much awaited cruise vacation that was several years in the planning. In addition I ended up having an additional surgery about six weeks later. It took us apx three months to get the paperwork together. This is an expensive claim to the tune of 20K that we are still waiting on the settlement. Long story short we are very glad that we took out insurance. You just never know when something completely unexpected will happen to you. We have gotten through apx 14 years of trips without any problems and have never even had to file a claim until this one! Our time had finally come and we definitely did not see it coming!

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Additionally to the posts, we all have close family left back home. Not sure if a major health issue or death home were to occur that we would want to continue our trip. With both my wife's and my mother in there 90s we are now making trip insurance the new norm.

Since we are very healthy, with no pre-existing conditions (age 68/62) and never get sick, and it seems unlikely that illness would interfere with our cruise, does trip insurance costing 8-10% of the trip cost make much sense, particularly as we could easily absorb the loss. Would other adverse factors outside our control warrant the purchase of trip insurance anyway. What are the odds of a flight/cruise cancellation? TIA :)

Trip Insurance lets you cancel if something awful happens to a family member.

It also lets you cancel if some moron T bones you with their car or truck before you leave.

I was in perfect health until a "what the hell, I'll take it" stress test showed blocked arteries. No consequences, but it shows that we never know if the big one can suddenly occur unexpectedly. Appendicitis, etc. can suddenly happen.

You can slip & fall and break a bone on cobblestone streets or ship gangplanks. I'm very athletic, but **** happens.

I never bought it at first, but just in case a pre-trip accident or something happens to a family member I now see it as just a part of the cost. I could also easily afford the loss but frame of mind is important. Then there's the big several tens of thousands $ cost of emergency medical evacuation, however unlikely.

Since medical expenses while out of the country could be astronomical, I definitely would buy the medical/evacuation insurance, particularly since it fairly inexpensive and has better medical coverage than the comprehensive policies.

We always buy travel insurance and most often use InsureMyTrip. On our 2019 Viking river cruise, we went with our travel agent's recommendation to use Travel Insured International. I compared their premium with Viking and with InsureMyTrip and Travel Insured International was just a few $ more but has better coverage & very high ratings. I would never book a cruise without insurance!

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Trip Insurance-worth it?

Here is my take on trip insurance, after taking many European cruises and land tours which were prepaid--

We've always purchased trip/travel insurance through either Insure My Trip or Squaremouth. Used to find a good price on the ATA website but I think those days are over.

I'm 68 and insured under Medicare Advantage. Medicare does not cover hospital or MD bills outside the US. My plan does, I believe, cover emergency care, which I suppose amounts to basic stabilization of the patient for transport back home (transport not covered.) Foreign hospitals and practitioners would not bill your insurance, you'd have to pay out of pocket and work out reimbursement to yourself from your carrier.

On a recent 2 week tour of Scotland/Ireland, the following occurred:

One of the group, a woman who I believe was in her 40's, fell to the floor in the hotel lobby and was transported to an Irish hospital. She was diagnosed with a stroke and had to spend multiple days in that hospital before being stable enough to travel home. Her sister, also in her 40's, while visiting that same hospital, tripped over a curb on the street and broke her arm. So the sister also needed to be admitted for surgery to fix the arm. They were hospitalized about 4 days or so, as I recall.

When we spoke with them, the final bill for the hospital, for both of them, was quite reasonable, several thousand dollars. Their travel insurance covered that bill. Given the stroke and the need for a surgery, even for younger "healthy" people, you can never tell what your financial liability will be until all costs are incurred. If your medical insurance does not cover outside the US, you'd be paying the bills yourself. I personally would not want that potential liability hanging over my head (of course, the bills for this in the US would have easily topped $ 100K.) In addition, if you need to be medically evacuated by private plane with attendants, that is another stratosphere of costs.

So for our upcoming Uniworld cruise, I paid about $ 2,000 to buy comprehensive, primary medical insurance with $100K medical and evac included, for 5 people--4 were over 60 years old. Primary coverage means the travel insurance policy pays first and I think it's worth the peace of mind to cover 5 of us on at trip that is costing about $ 40,000 all in.

Would it make more sense to buy a Basic comprehensive policy and buy a separate high limit medical/evac policy rather than a single Gold or Platinum comprehensive policy? Seems like it would be cheaper and have higher medical/evac limits. Does anyone do this?

AIG/Travel Guard offers both.

There's no point in buying higher med-evac coverage in your trip insurance, because the insurance company still determines when you are allowed to use it and where they will take you. Save that money and buy MedJet separately -- it's very reasonable*, and YOU get to determine when and where you will be evacuated to (you must be admitted to a local hospital, but it does not require the local doctor to agree that you need evacuation). *Buy it through AARP and it's even cheaper!

The problem with medjet is that it is not useable if there is not an airport close by that they can get one of their jets into.

They also do not pay for the transport to get you to a hospital to be admitted.

So while there are some advantages to medjet, there are also some disadvantages. I used to have MedJet but dropped them.

I have found that I use my credit card for cancellation/ trip interruption (10,000 per person per trip) costs me $0, then get a medical and evacuation policy with GeoBlue fairly inexpensively.

I have found that I use my credit card for cancellation/ trip interruption (10,000 per person per trip) costs me $0, then get a medical and evacuation policy with GeoBlue fairly inexpensively.

We did the same last year for a land tour in Germany - used our CC for cancellation/trip interruption coverage and bought medical/evacuation coverage separately through American Express because I felt the CC's limits were too low. We compared the CC's policy very closely and in detail with a number of other companies' policies before making that decision.

We did end up cancelling the trip because our son needed open heart surgery. The tour company refunded a certain amount based on how far in advance we cancelled, and the CC refunded the rest. AmEx refunded the cost of the medical coverage since we cancelled the trip and no longer needed that coverage. All in all, we were very pleased and plan to do the same in future (compare CC policy closely and carefully with others, then supplement as needed).

I use Berkshire Hathaway for myself and for my clients.