Trip Insurance

[AZ Squirrel]

Considering a cruise in October- we have always just tacked on the RCCL trip insurance, but wondering if there is any better option out there?  

[Big_G]

We just bought an annual policy through Allianz but we previously used https://www.insuremytrip.com/. They're a broker with multiple options through multiple companies.

[Cherful59]

AIG Travel guard is one you can check on.  They have different plans to pick from.

[rimmit]

I use insuremytrip.com to supplement my CC insurance.  Insuremytrip will give you multiple company options and you can compare coverage.  I filed many claims recently and can attest to my experience with several.

 

I will say my experience with Travel Insured has been less than stellar.  I am 9 months into waiting on a 55k dollar claim. 
 

Arch RoamRight paid out a 2k claim when got stuck in the Galapagos with Covid very quickly.  Like 2 weeks.

 

Broadspire which is what my CC uses, takes about 2-3 months to process a claim but they do pay out, including one for a cruise I missed back in October and some plane flights related to when my wife was run over by a car in Zimbabwe.

 

Travel Insured did well in the moment when we got them involved and handled the botched repatriation from South Africa and then the and air ambulance once we got back to the US, but have been terrible with processing my claim.  I would not use Travel Insured again if that is what insuremytrip gives you as an option.  The rest have been fine.

Edited March 31, 2023 by rimmit

[Cruise5life]

12 minutes ago, rimmit said:

I use insuremytrip.com to supplement my CC insurance.  Insuremytrip will give you multiple company options and you can compare coverage.  I filed many claims recently and can attest to my experience with several.

 

I will say my experience with Travel Insured has been less than stellar.  I am 9 months into waiting on a 55k dollar claim. 
 

Arch RoamRight paid out a 2k claim when got stuck in the Galapagos with Covid very quickly.  Like 2 weeks.

 

Broadspire which is what my CC uses, takes about 2-3 months to process a claim but they do pay out, including one for a cruise I missed back in October and some plane flights related to when my wife was run over by a car in Zimbabwe.

 

Travel Insured did well in the moment when we got them involved and handled the botched repatriation from South Africa and then the and air ambulance once we got back to the US, but have been terrible with processing my claim.  I would not use Travel Insured again if that is what insuremytrip gives you as an option.  The rest have been fine.

how is your wife doing ?      I was following along to your blog.    
 

because of your posts I got extra medical coverage with GeoBlue.
For my 29 days at sea on top of my cruise lines insurance.   
 

im looking at AIG a travel guard now 

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by Cruise5life

[njkruzer]

About to renew annual policy with Allianz.  So far no claims but still want insurance. 

[rimmit]

1 hour ago, Cruise5life said:

how is your wife doing ?      I was following along to your blog.    
 

because of your posts I got extra medical coverage with GeoBlue.
For my 29 days at sea on top of my cruise lines insurance.   
 

im looking at AIG a travel guard now 

 

Smart move.  Never can have too much insurance.  After the trip I have definitely increased my insurance plans, and it’s likely overkill at this point, but I don’t care.

 

She’s doing better!  Thanks for asking.  In Jan we went to NYC for a couple days and saw some shows.  She was able to walk up to 10 minutes at a time there so we only had to use the wheelchair sparingly which was great.

 

The bigger trip was a 12 day trip to Vegas for a conference and then right after the Star Trek Cruise, which was her first cruise since the accident.  She did amazingly well there.  She only required a wheelchair in the airports.  She was able to walk sparingly around a Vegas resort without too much difficulty, and she boarded the ship without a wheelchair and was able to get around the ship slowly, but never required a wheelchair.  

 

She’s still doing PT 3x a week to improve her ROM in her foot which is the main limiting factor.  Her ROM is so limited that barefoot it is still very hard to get her heel on the ground, but if she has a small heel on a shoe she walks pretty well.  It’s a slow process but she’s still improving and she’s alive which is the main thing.  Hard to believe its been almost 10 months since it happened.

[plutosmom]

I, too, followed the medical event and am so glad to hear your wife is on the mend!   You provided a lot of helpful information and education regarding the event, so thank you!!

[Cruise5life]

1 hour ago, rimmit said:

Smart move.  Never can have too much insurance.  After the trip I have definitely increased my insurance plans, and it’s likely overkill at this point, but I don’t care.

 

She’s doing better!  Thanks for asking.  In Jan we went to NYC for a couple days and saw some shows.  She was able to walk up to 10 minutes at a time there so we only had to use the wheelchair sparingly which was great.

 

The bigger trip was a 12 day trip to Vegas for a conference and then right after the Star Trek Cruise, which was her first cruise since the accident.  She did amazingly well there.  She only required a wheelchair in the airports.  She was able to walk sparingly around a Vegas resort without too much difficulty, and she boarded the ship without a wheelchair and was able to get around the ship slowly, but never required a wheelchair.  

 

She’s still doing PT 3x a week to improve her ROM in her foot which is the main limiting factor.  Her ROM is so limited that barefoot it is still very hard to get her heel on the ground, but if she has a small heel on a shoe she walks pretty well.  It’s a slow process but she’s still improving and she’s alive which is the main thing.  Hard to believe its been almost 10 months since it happened.

Glad to hear she doing a lot better.   
glad you guys had a good trip here in my home city.     And glad your wife is moving around better.    
 

if we could ask what you’ve changed in your insurance since the accident ?    
this is always my biggest fret as I travel solo a lot.   
thinking good thought for your wife 

[Ourusualbeach]

4 hours ago, AZ Squirrel said:

Considering a cruise in October- we have always just tacked on the RCCL trip insurance, but wondering if there is any better option out there?  

Royals insurance is relatively inexpensive for trip cancellation and CFAR and has the added benefit of not having to pay for it until final payment.

 

Medical at $25k and evac at $50k would not make a dent in serious medical issues and you should make sure that you have additional coverage.  On the plus side though for medical the insurance is purely based on the cost of the trip so for those older folks that can find medical insurance prohibitive this is aa reasonable option

[Cruise5life]

9 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

  On the plus side though for medical the insurance is purely based on the cost of the trip so for those older folks that can find medical insurance prohibitive this is aa reasonable option

When I got my yearly medical coverage in January there was nothing about trip cost.  151.00 a year.  500k med 250k evac.   

[JOVERNITE]

Trip insurance through cruise lines are inadequate.  We use insuremytrip as well. It's easy to use based on what is important to you. There are reviews as well. On two cruises someone had a medical evacuation (helicopter). That became something important to us. We always get a comprehensive policy.  I had two separate claims while on 2 separate cruises.  I had to submit the claim to my medical insurance & once I got their declination I sent it to travel  insurance company. They paid in about two weeks. Had to see the doctor on my Feb 2023 cruise. Same situation. Waiting for the declination so I can send it to the insurance company.

[rimmit]

3 hours ago, Cruise5life said:

Glad to hear she doing a lot better.   
glad you guys had a good trip here in my home city.     And glad your wife is moving around better.    
 

if we could ask what you’ve changed in your insurance since the accident ?    
this is always my biggest fret as I travel solo a lot.   
thinking good thought for your wife 

Well, for one I bought 2 million in umbrella insurance.  After seeing how much pain and suffering can occur in an accident, if I accidentally ran someone over and it went over the my limits of my car insurance policy which is 100k, they can sue me for anything over.  I figured 100k was ample but after seeing just how fast medical bills pile up and even more important than that is the pain suffering.  Sky is the limit there.  I need to protect my family and my assets, in the event I get sued.  Typically 1 million is ample, but with inflation and seeing the cost of what my wife has been through, more is never a bad thing.

 

It is so unfortunate this happened outside the US for many reasons but the one real sticking point for me now as time wears on and I see my wife still in notable pain 10 months later, is the pain and suffering.  Had this occurred in the US it is an ambulance chaser case.  We would have easily maxed out the auto insurance claim of 100k for most people and then got significantly more for the pain and suffering and permanent disability.  I have a friend who is an injury lawyer, and he was telling me if this was in the US we coulda definitely gotten A LOT of cruising out of this and upped our retirement plans by a year or two most likely at minimum.  Unfortunately, instead of that, her care from the moment she got back to a US hospital is out of our pocket and our insurance’s pocket.  Just add’s salt to the wound to be constantly paying more money for someone’s negligence.   
 

Not trying to scare you, but if what happened to my wife happened to a solo traveler, I honestly don’t know what would happen.  Without an advocate there that was able bodied enough to do all the logistics and payments….  I honestly don’t know how that would pan out, but not well most likely.  If you were lucid enough to make one phone call you might be able to call someone, but the “hospital” didn’t have the ability to make an international phone call….. so honestly I don’t know how things would shake out.  Very scary. 

 

Getting back to insurance, we have trip interruption, cancellation, and delay via our CC, I normally used that as my main trip insurance and I used to only buy extra trip insurance for bigger vacations and just buy medical/evac to ensure we were covered on the medical side of things.  Now I always buy a comprehensive policy ON TOP of my CC insurance.  Is it overkill, absolutely, but after what we’ve been through, I’d prefer to have more than less to ensure I am covered from all angles.

[time4u2go]

9 hours ago, AZ Squirrel said:

Considering a cruise in October- we have always just tacked on the RCCL trip insurance, but wondering if there is any better option out there?  

Self-insuring.

[rimmit]

13 minutes ago, time4u2go said:

Self-insuring.

Agree.  Self insuring is a great option for just the trip portion.  You can only lose what you put into your trip so you can definitely come out ahead over time if you self insure if you are lucky and never have to cancel or get interrupted.

 

Self insuring is not so great for the medical/med evac part…. Skies the limit there, as there is obviously no ceiling on medical care.

[time4u2go]

3 minutes ago, rimmit said:

 

Self insuring is not so great for the medical/med evac part…. Skies the limit there, as there is obviously no ceiling on medical care.

Agreed. That's where having great medical insurance comes in.

[Ourusualbeach]

20 minutes ago, time4u2go said:

Self-insuring.

deleted, already covered

Edited April 1, 2023 by Ourusualbeach

[Ourusualbeach]

5 minutes ago, rimmit said:

Agree.  Self insuring is a great option for just the trip portion.  You can only lose what you put into your trip so you can definitely come out ahead over time if you self insure if you are lucky and never have to cancel or get interrupted.

 

Self insuring is not so great for the medical/med evac part…. Skies the limit there, as there is obviously no ceiling on medical care.

Plus there are lots of credit cards that will cover up to a preset $ amount to help offset the self insuring of the cruise fare portion of the trip

[rimmit]

Just now, Ourusualbeach said:

Plus there are lots of credit cards that will cover up to a preset $ amount to help offset the self insuring of the cruise fare portion of the trip

Yes.  CC is great if you can use it.  It’s really annoying when the operator will only take wire transfers,  as a couple of our more recent vacations have been wire transfer only negating the CC insurance (and also negating the ability to get miles.  Urgh.) 

[Ashland]

We have a GeoBlue annual policy and use The Trip Insurance Store to purchase a policy as an addition at times.

[Subman738]

On 3/31/2023 at 10:05 AM, Cruise5life said:

how is your wife doing ?      I was following along to your blog.    
 

because of your posts I got extra medical coverage with GeoBlue.
For my 29 days at sea on top of my cruise lines insurance.   
 

im looking at AIG a travel guard now 

 

Be sure to read your policy carefully. My wife fell and broke her hand and glasses the first night of our cruise. We thought she was going to have to have surgery when we pulled into Cozumel but the doctors on board decided that she could wait until return to the US. Because her surgery and glasses replacement were AFTER out cruise dates the insurance didn't pay to replace the glasses or any of the copays for the surgery and follow up physical therapy. 

[Cruise5life]

On 4/12/2023 at 10:23 AM, Subman738 said:

Be sure to read your policy carefully. My wife fell and broke her hand and glasses the first night of our cruise. We thought she was going to have to have surgery when we pulled into Cozumel but the doctors on board decided that she could wait until return to the US. Because her surgery and glasses replacement were AFTER out cruise dates the insurance didn't pay to replace the glasses or any of the copays for the surgery and follow up physical therapy. 

What company were you using?   

[Thisguylikestocruise]

They’re in business to make profit, not truly benefit the consumer. Insurance companies have countless reasons to deny claims. Even if you read fine print and think it’s a good policy they can still act in bad faith, and make up false or fraudulent reasons for denial of coverage. (e.g., denying coverage of a medical procedure because it’s not FDA approved, the insurance company will falsely say it’s experimental, even though it’s been widely accepted in the medical community for decades and is considered standard of care.) 

 

You can appeal, and seek compensation through legal means if they have bad faith insurance practices that result in delayed treatment and causes unnecessary harm(denying coverage of surgery/physical therapy for a injury that happened during your trip.)

Edited April 14, 2023 by Thisguylikestocruise

[Subman738]

7 hours ago, Cruise5life said:

What company were you using?   

I was using AIG Travel Guard

[Nolefan95]

On 3/31/2023 at 9:48 AM, AZ Squirrel said:

Considering a cruise in October- we have always just tacked on the RCCL trip insurance, but wondering if there is any better option out there?  

We always get GeoBlue Voyager Choice (affiliated with Blue Cross). I don't really want trip cancellation coverage as the likelihood of me canceling a cruise is extremely small. This policy primarily covers health and evacuation up to $500K and is very cheap.