insurance

travel insurance -- yes or no

It depends.

For us - yes.

We get Cancel for Any Reason insurance and Outside the Country Medical Coverage.

travel insurance -- yes or no

100% yes!!!

There are many reasons to get trip insurance, not just reimbursement of your expenses. Remember even healthy people have accidents........;)

Go to www.insuremytrip.com and compare policies. I find the small price I pay for a policy is well worth it for the peace of mind!

Happy Sailing!!!!

Just read down the board to this thread from yesterday:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2002074

travel insurance -- yes or no

Medical coverage, especially for medical evacuation, definitely YES.

Also, can you afford to lose the cost of the cruise if you miss it for some reason or have to cancel after final payment?

travel insurance -- yes or no

Yes - small price to pay relative to the cost of the cruise for peace of mind should you have to cancel. Also important to purchase for medical insurance and evacuation benefits as if you are a USA citizen most insurance plans have minimal foreign coverage and Medicare will not cover outside the USA.

IMO opinion best not to purchase the plans through the Cruise lines particularly if you need to medical coverage. Also if you have any medical preexisting conditions than the policy has to be purchased within a specific period of time from the booking date ( 10-14 days depending on policy and insurance company) to be covered.

Yes! We've had to cancel 3 cruises/cruise tours because of health problems of elderly parents and the SARS crisis.

Go to Insure My Trip, or another comparison site to pick a policy that covers what is important to you. For us, it needs to have a good pre-existing conditions policy and high medical and evacuation reimbursement, since these are most important to us.

We do insure the cost of the trip as well, although, to us, this is less important. We could 'eat' the trip cost, though we wouldn't like it, but a true medical emergency that requires extensive treatment and/or evacuation could run into the tens of thousands, or even more. That we would not want to have to pay for ourselves.

And, things happen even to the young and healthy; we've experienced a recent unexpected death of a young (37) friend from acute pancreatitis--got sick on Thursday, died the next Monday. Accidents happen to all ages, too.

No -- insurance companies are rich for a reason! If you have good health insurance + maybe a small evacuation plan, that's all you need. If you travel frequently, the cost of all this additional insurance will kill your budget.

If you are in very poor health; very elderly; or only take an expensive "trip of a lifetime" once every few years, yes maybe insurance makes sense.

Frequent travelers should always self-insure. We travel 10 -- 12 weeks a year, with 3 or 4 cruises thrown in there. In over 30 years I've never needed travel insurance.

Yes! We've had to cancel 3 cruises/cruise tours because of health problems of elderly parents and the SARS crisis.

 

Go to Insure My Trip, or another comparison site to pick a policy that covers what is important to you. For us, it needs to have a good pre-existing conditions policy and high medical and evacuation reimbursement, since these are most important to us.

 

We do insure the cost of the trip as well, although, to us, this is less important. We could 'eat' the trip cost, though we wouldn't like it, but a true medical emergency that requires extensive treatment and/or evacuation could run into the tens of thousands, or even more. That we would not want to have to pay for ourselves.

 

And, things happen even to the young and healthy; we've experienced a recent unexpected death of a young (37) friend from acute pancreatitis--got sick on Thursday, died the next Monday. Accidents happen to all ages, too.

Well said.

ALWAYS a big YES!!

Unless you are lucky enough to be fabulously wealthy and can cover the costs of any sort of medical issue and/or medical evacuation back home by just writing a check.

Yes, with 11 cruises and having to use the insurance once we feel it is worth it. Reimbursed the cost of the cruise, and our OOP medical costs for a 3 day hospital stay in San Diego. Also covered some of the additional air line fees and hotel costs, even though air was not booked thru the cruise line.

This more than compensated us for the cost of the insurance on 11 cruises.

Mary Lou

Yes. Primarily for the medical coverage and the medevac coverage. The added protection of trip interruption/delay, lost/destroyed baggage and trip cancellation are pluses. Our most recent policy cost $30 a person and because we purchased it within 14 days of initial payment we not only receive a pre-existing condition waiver but the travel insurance will pay primary for medical. The last thing I want to do in a foreign country is to try and find a preferred provider under my health plan.

Yes! The one time we needed it was the one time we didn't have it.

travel insurance -- yes or no

Always YES

If you are an OZZIE traveling for more than 3 months - you can have your private medical insurance put on hold if you take out travel insurance - we have found that the savings on one covers the cost of the other. If not an OZZIE - check with your private medical insurance to see if they do something similar - you do have to travel for a certain number of weeks/months however.

Yes

Just used insurance last month when a major snow storm caused our flights to be cancelled -- we were even heading to the embarkation port a couple of days early.

Yes

 

Just used insurance last month when a major snow storm caused our flights to be cancelled -- we were even heading to the embarkation port a couple of days early.

What a disappointment but good your insurance paid.

Whether you buy trip cancellation insurance is simply a personal preference. Since DW and I travel 6-7 months a year, decent cancellation insurance is ridiculously expensive so we choose to self-insure our trips (which means no cancellation insurance). So far, we are ahead of the game by over $100,000 (the amount of money we have saved by not buying normal trip insurance).

But, one should never go anywhere without good health insurance! Some folks have coverage through their regular health insurance, but many others (including those with Medicare) have no medical insurance when outside the USA. There are trip and annual travel medical (no cancellation stuff in these policies) that are quite cheap. For example, DW and I have an annual policy that covers every trip we take during a year (up to the first 70 days per trip) and it costs us $350 (total cost for 2 seniors). For that money we get $250,000 or medical coverage and $500,000 of trip evacuation.

Hank

Whether you buy trip cancellation insurance is simply a personal preference. Since DW and I travel 6-7 months a year, decent cancellation insurance is ridiculously expensive so we choose to self-insure our trips (which means no cancellation insurance). So far, we are ahead of the game by over $100,000 (the amount of money we have saved by not buying normal trip insurance).

 

But, one should never go anywhere without good health insurance! Some folks have coverage through their regular health insurance, but many others (including those with Medicare) have no medical insurance when outside the USA. There are trip and annual travel medical (no cancellation stuff in these policies) that are quite cheap. For example, DW and I have an annual policy that covers every trip we take during a year (up to the first 70 days per trip) and it costs us $350 (total cost for 2 seniors). For that money we get $250,000 or medical coverage and $500,000 of trip evacuation.

Great example of how cost effective insurance can be when you tailor the coverage to your specific needs.

Whether you buy trip cancellation insurance is simply a personal preference. Since DW and I travel 6-7 months a year, decent cancellation insurance is ridiculously expensive so we choose to self-insure our trips (which means no cancellation insurance). So far, we are ahead of the game by over $100,000 (the amount of money we have saved by not buying normal trip insurance).

By crikey, US insurance is expensive. My mother and I have joint annual insurance for just over £600 - she's 81 with no medical issues, I have had a recent gall bladder op - at that rate it would take about 250 years to reach your costs. When I was fully fit, annual including USA cost about £70.

By crikey, US insurance is expensive. My mother and I have joint annual insurance for just over £600 - she's 81 with no medical issues, I have had a recent gall bladder op - at that rate it would take about 250 years to reach your costs. When I was fully fit, annual including USA cost about £70.

You misread Hlitner's post.

The $100k cost was for *trip cancelation* coverage for many, many, trips. Not health insurance.

You misread Hlitner's post.

 

The $100k cost was for *trip cancelation* coverage for many, many, trips. Not health insurance.

Too funny and I guess things do get lost in language. And you are correct. When we say we are over $100,000 ahead by not buying cancellation insurance the savings ($100,000+) come from all the insurance premiums we did not pay over many years. We take some expensive long trips where the cancellation insurance can easily cost $3000 for a single trip. And we have taken a lot of trips :)

To further explain our philosophy, we know (for a fact) that we can afford to lose the cost of a trip because we are going to pay that cost if we take the trip (and lose most of it if we cancel). That is a known amount of loss, and our total liability or risk is essentially the cost of a trip. So we usually choose to not insure that particular risk. But the potential for medical liability is virtually unlimited and we cannot afford to take that risk...so we make sure we have decent medical coverage.

Hank

Same for us.

We book medical and evacuation coverage but for about our last 50+ cruises, we do not buy trip cancellation coverage and have saved tens of thousands of dollars in premiums we didn't pay. It's the first 4 or 5 self-insured (no insurance) cruises where we were at risk of loss. After those cruises, we started to be at break even should we have had to cancel during penalty period but thankfully, we never suffered a loss due to cancellation. At this point, though we'd be unhappy to lose the price of a cruise, we still would be a great deal of $$ in the plus column. If we could not afford to lose those funds, we would not have booked the cruise.

ALWAYS a big YES!!

 

Unless you are lucky enough to be fabulously wealthy and can cover the costs of any sort of medical issue and/or medical evacuation back home by just writing a check.

Great post! Now I am lucky enough to have medical coverage and evacuation through my employers plan. I would just need the trip cancelation. The total cost of the cruise is $2000 for my teen and I, insurance will cost us $90 each. No flight involved as the port is a ferry ride away. Should I bother?

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Yes

When i was about 12 i got so sick during a vacation trip that i had to be emergency flown home.

So, yes, ypung and healthy individuals do need a travel insurance. How much is travel insurance in the states? As here in northern europe it is about 35 dollars per week, i dont understand how that can be too much for anyone.

Though we only need it when travelling outside EU.