Insurance prices...too good to be true?

[amurray88]

If this isn't allowed please shout and I'll remove.

 

I'm on Azura in 2 weeks time and was just sorting my travel insurance. Found a wee note on a website about coverwise. Got a quote (they say all their policies cover cruises) for £16 for me, my wife and my 6 month old for the week. Seemed very good...I was expecting at least £30-40.

 

Anyone got any experience with them?

[david63]

To me that sounds ridiculously cheap for three of you (even £40 sounds cheap). The proof with any travel insurance comes when you have to make a claim and it is only then that you will know how good they are. I know that they get a lot of good reviews - but how many of those have made a claim?

 

Is this not the company that is based in Gibraltar? That would concern me somewhat.

 

Also isn't it a bit late at two weeks to be starting to look for travel insurance? Normally you would have that in place no later than balance payment time!

[kalos]

 I just sent five minutes looking on the t -pilot site and apart from the silly 5*reviews that any insurer gets with "they took my money with no fuss " as they would .

Others read I was stuck and no one to talk to, no help ,everything online .

As we are not allowed to advertise I will say this a few weeks ago when my Mrs took ill

onboard a ship we were landed a 2K plus bill but no worries .

As once home they contacted us with a human who sorted us out with what was required 

and could talk to them anytime . More important they paid out no stalling .

 

My advice if they don't have a UK call centre and are mega cheap I would steer clear .

When things go wrong and your heads all over the place , you will be glad of a reassuring voice and not texts and e-mail chats from your insurer .

[pete14]

21 minutes ago, kalos said:

 I just sent five minutes looking on the t -pilot site and apart from the silly 5*reviews that any insurer gets with "they took my money with no fuss " as they would .

Others read I was stuck and no one to talk to, no help ,everything online .

As we are not allowed to advertise I will say this a few weeks ago when my Mrs took ill

onboard a ship we were landed a 2K plus bill but no worries .

As once home they contacted us with a human who sorted us out with what was required 

and could talk to them anytime . More important they paid out no stalling .

 

My advice if they don't have a UK call centre and are mega cheap I would steer clear .

When things go wrong and your heads all over the place , you will be glad of a reassuring voice and not texts and e-mail chats from your insurer .

Another thing to find out is whether they provide the minimum level of cover that P&O require. 

[Leomins]

I have no experience of them but they have a 5 star Defaqto rating which takes into account claims processes. 

[pete14]

Covering cruises and cruise cover can be different things. Covering cruises can be interpreted as meaning they will cover a cruise in the same way as any other package  holiday. Cruise cover is likely to cover extras such as missed port cover along with the more basic things.

[FangedRose]

The most important thing (in my mind) is repatriation and medical evacuation (helicopter off the ship) cover.

[amurray88]

13 hours ago, FangedRose said:

The most important thing (in my mind) is repatriation and medical evacuation (helicopter off the ship) cover.

Agreed... the rest is mainly compensation for unfortunate events that on the whole, are first world problems. These 2 are absolutely imperative.

[amurray88]

19 hours ago, david63 said:

To me that sounds ridiculously cheap for three of you (even £40 sounds cheap). The proof with any travel insurance comes when you have to make a claim and it is only then that you will know how good they are. I know that they get a lot of good reviews - but how many of those have made a claim?

 

Is this not the company that is based in Gibraltar? That would concern me somewhat.

 

Also isn't it a bit late at two weeks to be starting to look for travel insurance? Normally you would have that in place no later than balance payment time!

Most of the time I book insurance at the airport.... this is early for me!

[pete14]

1 hour ago, amurray88 said:

Agreed... the rest is mainly compensation for unfortunate events that on the whole, are first world problems. These 2 are absolutely imperative.

I agree that those are imperative, just check that the financial level of cover meets P&Os requirements. I presume it will, but best to make sure. I mentioned the extras that cruise cover provides because I know some get disappointed when they fail to get cover for things like missed ports because they do not take out this extra cover.

[annieuk]

If you  were booking an expensive cruise and failed to have insurance once you paid the balance then if, for example, you were unfortunate to have an accident and say break your leg and would be unable to travel, if you didn't have insurance in place you would lose your money.  P&O wouldn't allow you to transfer your cruise once the final balance has been paid.  This happened to me when I broke my ankle after paying the final balance on a cruise from Southampton.  Luckily I had insurance in place, I asked if I could transfer to the same itinerary the following year but was told I couldn't and had to claim on my insurance, which I did and got back  even the car parking fee I had paid to CPS.  

 

Pre Covid my husband and I were on a 30 night cruise to Canada/USA and my husband developed worrying symptoms when we were approaching Canada.  To cut a long story short, we were told he had to go to hospital in Newfoundland to have a scan and it would depend on the doctor as to whether we would be allowed back on the ship.  We had to pack up our cabin in case we didn't get back to the ship.  The Port Agent was totally useless, we were taken to the hospital by taxi which we had to pay for, and the Agent told me if we needed to fly back home it would be up to our Insurance company to organise the travel and pay for it.  Luckily the hospital in St. John's was amazing and we were eventually allowed back on the ship and could continue our cruise.  P&O Southampton contacted us and were great and I think if we had had to return home they would have been very helpful.  I understand Port Agents are usually extremely helpful, ours was the exception.  I can tell you being off the ship with just a suitcase each in the event we had to fly home was incredibly scary.  To be in that position with and insurance company you weren't sure off is unimaginable.  I too prefer to pay a bit extra and go with a company where I can phone them and talk to a person, preferably in this country and ensure that I have cover in case of any emergency.

[amurray88]

13 minutes ago, pete14 said:

I agree that those are imperative, just check that the financial level of cover meets P&Os requirements. I presume it will, but best to make sure. I mentioned the extras that cruise cover provides because I know some get disappointed when they fail to get cover for things like missed ports because they do not take out this extra cover.

If it was ports that I was desperate to see them definitely but the Azura is more just to get away...if we miss Fuerteventura it's not the end of the world 👌

[amurray88]

2 minutes ago, annieuk said:

If you  were booking an expensive cruise and failed to have insurance once you paid the balance then if, for example, you were unfortunate to have an accident and say break your leg and would be unable to travel, if you didn't have insurance in place you would lose your money.  P&O wouldn't allow you to transfer your cruise once the final balance has been paid.  This happened to me when I broke my ankle after paying the final balance on a cruise from Southampton.  Luckily I had insurance in place, I asked if I could transfer to the same itinerary the following year but was told I couldn't and had to claim on my insurance, which I did and got back  even the car parking fee I had paid to CPS.  

 

Pre Covid my husband and I were on a 30 night cruise to Canada/USA and my husband developed worrying symptoms when we were approaching Canada.  To cut a long story short, we were told he had to go to hospital in Newfoundland to have a scan and it would depend on the doctor as to whether we would be allowed back on the ship.  We had to pack up our cabin in case we didn't get back to the ship.  The Port Agent was totally useless, we were taken to the hospital by taxi which we had to pay for, and the Agent told me if we needed to fly back home it would be up to our Insurance company to organise the travel and pay for it.  Luckily the hospital in St. John's was amazing and we were eventually allowed back on the ship and could continue our cruise.  P&O Southampton contacted us and were great and I think if we had had to return home they would have been very helpful.  I understand Port Agents are usually extremely helpful, ours was the exception.  I can tell you being off the ship with just a suitcase each in the event we had to fly home was incredibly scary.  To be in that position with and insurance company you weren't sure off is unimaginable.  I too prefer to pay a bit extra and go with a company where I can phone them and talk to a person, preferably in this country and ensure that I have cover in case of any emergency.

For medical emergencies you phoned AXA directly, in the UK, 24/7 so I think that part is ok hopefully. 

 

Thanks folks...just shows the difference in prices, crazy!

[jeanlyon]

4 hours ago, amurray88 said:

Most of the time I book insurance at the airport.... this is early for me!

I think you are very foolish to wait until the last minute.  You need cover in place when you pay the final balance, otherwise you are not covered.

[amurray88]

3 hours ago, jeanlyon said:

I think you are very foolish to wait until the last minute.  You need cover in place when you pay the final balance, otherwise you are not covered.

Thanks for your input.

[lebreos]

I must admit to following Martin Lewis's advice on insurance cover - to have it in place ASAB - as soon as you book - or annual policy so if the unforeseen happens you have a chance of getting refunded due to illness etc. There have been plenty of examples of even where 1 of the party has died suddenly, or sudden onset of cancer the cruise company refuse to repay or rebook and are totally within their terms and conditions to do so. 

[hobbsie65]

I am a travel insurance claims handler & spend most of my day explaining to people what is & what is not covered while they are arguing with me after declining a claim - no one reads the documents & blame everyone else for this 🙂 

[Josy1953]

We have annual travel insurance and as soon as we get a renewal notice we check it against quotes from several other well known insurance companies and then either renew with the current insurer or one if the others depending on the quotes that we have.  We like to be continuously covered just incase we decide to get away at the last minute.  We make sure that we declare every little thing that we are aware of and as was the case a couple of years ago if something changes during the year  we ring the insurance company to get it changed on the policy.

It may be pain checking the detail and it may cost a little more if we declare something new but it would be a bigger problem if something went wrong and we weren't covered.

[david63]

3 hours ago, lebreos said:

have it in place ASAB - as soon as you book - or annual policy

Having insurance in place as soon as you book is not always possible with cruising due to the long lead times that are around these days. Normally you cannot take out annual insurance more than 12 month ahead of the cruise date and when you reach a certain age (depends on insurance company) then you cannot have annual insurance. This is a case of the insurance industry keeping pace with the holiday/cruise industry.

 

The bottom line is that you either don't book more than 12 months ahead of time running the risk that you cannot get the cabin/price that you want or being prepared to stand the loss of the deposit.

[yorkshirephil]

1 hour ago, hobbsie65 said:

I am a travel insurance claims handler & spend most of my day explaining to people what is & what is not covered while they are arguing with me after declining a claim - no one reads the documents & blame everyone else for this 🙂 

I disagree, lots of people read the documents as they usually know that the devil is in the detail and insurance companies are better that most for using confusing small print and then using it to decline claims.

[hobbsie65]

40 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

I disagree, lots of people read the documents as they usually know that the devil is in the detail and insurance companies are better that most for using confusing small print and then using it to decline claims.

They are declined because people don't read the documents & are not covered - nothing to do with 'small print'. I handle about 20 claims a day & my company underwrite about 60+ different company's so I have a little bit of experience in this 

[majortom10]

18 minutes ago, hobbsie65 said:

They are declined because people don't read the documents & are not covered - nothing to do with 'small print'. I handle about 20 claims a day & my company underwrite about 60+ different company's so I have a little bit of experience in this 

Yes I agree with you completely but don't forget on CC you are dealing with people who think they know it all and experts in everything.

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, david63 said:

Having insurance in place as soon as you book is not always possible with cruising due to the long lead times that are around these days. Normally you cannot take out annual insurance more than 12 month ahead of the cruise date and when you reach a certain age (depends on insurance company) then you cannot have annual insurance. This is a case of the insurance industry keeping pace with the holiday/cruise industry.

 

The bottom line is that you either don't book more than 12 months ahead of time running the risk that you cannot get the cabin/price that you want or being prepared to stand the loss of the deposit.

I think you meant single trip cover cannot be taken out until you are within 12 months of the cruise date.

My understanding is that if you have continuous annual cover,  then this does cover holidays booked beyond the 12 month period. But maybe @hobbsie65 could confirm if this is correct, and if this also applies if you switch insurance company, but renew the annual policy on the correct date.

Edited December 21, 2023 by terrierjohn

[davekent]

Must confess I have been lazy in researching this. We enjoyed the 3 cruises we have undertaken to date but to be honest probably prefer fly, train and UK holidays so this current year had no intention of going on a cruise. Then a month ago we saw a stay and cruise offer (this time on Azamara) that seemed too good to be true for next June. Our current annual policy until next March does not include the cruise add on but of course we would purchase the add on for the cruise at the time of our next renewal or just before this when we need to fully pay for the holiday. I guess should anything dramatic happen in the meantime we would lose our deposit (no big deal) but not sure if not having cruise insurance at the time of purchase would have any impacts after this? I guess in the back of my mind is surely we do not need to pay for the extra cruise cover for 2 years just for a single 7 day cruise (asking here but at some stage would probably get around to asking the insurers!!)

[david63]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

I think you meant single trip cover cannot be taken out until you are within 12 months of the cruise date.

I did - sorry (note to self - read post before hitting submit)