Booking early and insurance

[CrusinAgain]

It appears when you book early you only have about 14 days to buy insurance in order to get cancel any time or a waive of pre-existing conditons and then you lose the money if you change the date. However if you book NCL insurance you don't have to pay until final payment is due but it doesn't cover your air that you book so you have to buy more insurance. So NCL will cost me about 60 dollars more by waiting than if I booked an independent before the 14 days up. But if I had to change the date before final payment, I wouldn't lose anything.

 

Cancel anytime is important because prexisting conditions do exist in the family.

 

What in the heck does everyone do here that have so many cruises booked in advance?

[Toyz711]

we were the only ones flying, everyone else was already in seattle for our cruise last sept. fil has major health issues. we since booked his cruise..we did cruise insurance through NCL for him and us. our flights would have been covered by the credit card, plus we have dealt with travel vouchers before for cancelled flights. we were more concerned about losing the cruise money.

[Arwenmark]

First cancel anytime and pre-existing conditions are two different things. you need to read the details of policies available. Also not all insurers require that advance purchase. try insuremytrip.com to compare various policies and rates. It is seldom a good idea to take the cruiseline insurance, some only offer you credit if you cancel and most do not pay if the company goes broke, cruise ship that is, that is one of the things to look for in the other policies. also crucial is the medical and evacuation coverage, that is very important.

Pre existing conditions apply to your family not just those cruising with you.

if your mother who is not cruising became critically ill or died the pre existing clause would apply there as well.

[CrusinAgain]

Yes, thank you but in order to get the cancel anytime or pre-existing conditions benefit you MUST buy the insurance within 14 days of booking which is why I was asking what others do if unsure of a particular date of a trip. If we don't take the cruiseline insurance we would have to buy the policy to make sure we are covered for preexisting or the ability to cancel anytime thru the site you mentioned and other sites that offer the same insurance.

[CrusinAgain]

we were the only ones flying, everyone else was already in seattle for our cruise last sept. fil has major health issues. we since booked his cruise..we did cruise insurance through NCL for him and us. our flights would have been covered by the credit card, plus we have dealt with travel vouchers before for cancelled flights. we were more concerned about losing the cruise money.

 

Awww....never thought about checking to see if there is coverage on the credit card for this. And are you saying if one had to cancel their flights or change dates, the airlines generally give you a credit voucher?

[jerseyjk]

There are some options ... I use tripinsurancestore. They have one provider who offers a deadline for preexisiting waiver that is "prior-to or within 24 hours of final trip payment" (defined as the date due of the pre-paid component of the most expensive part of the trip ...e.g. cruise final payment date). Their Emergency medical is secondary though and is per policy not per person and it's on the higher end of available policies.

 

You also should understand the lookback period. If the pre-existing condition is controlled (no changes in medication, diagnosis, care or treatment) in the 60, 90 or 180 days prior to policy purchase, the pre-existing condition may not be a pre-existing condition as excluded on the policy. So even if you wait past the 14 or 21 days (for pre-ex waiver) to buy the coverage, the medical emergency that cancels your trip may not be excluded if it was not an issue during the look-back period.

 

Some good info on lookback ... http://tripinsurancestore.com/3/lookback.shtml

 

pre-existing conditions ... http://tripinsurancestore.com/3/pre-existing.shtml

 

EDIT: According to their faq, you can change the dates of travel on your policy. So if you change dates, the coverage can be changed to the new dates. You do have to pay the insurance in full up front and if you cancel completely you don't get your premium back, but you can change your dates without losing the money you paid for insurance.

[Arwenmark]

If you cancel or change a non refundable airline ticket BEFORE it is the time to fly, then there is a service charge and you get credit for the balance on a future or changed flight, good for up to a year from the original date of the flight. Now if the changed flight is more money you pay the difference as well.

That is the general airline policy.

[ray1159]

we used the CSA Travel Protection ( link below ) the seemed to be the cheapest and there are like 3 catagories and ''pre existing'' health issues is on one of them for sure, and it covers your air fare, cruise and stuff like medical and dental emergency coverages...

I did some searching for insurance and found this to have pretty good coverage and the costs were less than other online services...

 

Hope this helps......

 

http://www.csatravelprotection.com/

 

Ray

[CrusinAgain]

There are some options ... I use tripinsurancestore. They have one provider who offers a deadline for preexisiting waiver that is "prior-to or within 24 hours of final trip payment" (defined as the date due of the pre-paid component of the most expensive part of the trip ...e.g. cruise final payment date). Their Emergency medical is secondary though and is per policy not per person and it's on the higher end of available policies.

 

You also should understand the lookback period. If the pre-existing condition is controlled (no changes in medication, diagnosis, care or treatment) in the 60, 90 or 180 days prior to policy purchase, the pre-existing condition may not be a pre-existing condition as excluded on the policy. So even if you wait past the 14 or 21 days (for pre-ex waiver) to buy the coverage, the medical emergency that cancels your trip may not be excluded if it was not an issue during the look-back period.

 

Some good info on lookback ... http://tripinsurancestore.com/3/lookback.shtml

 

pre-existing conditions ... http://tripinsurancestore.com/3/pre-existing.shtml

 

EDIT: According to their faq, you can change the dates of travel on your policy. So if you change dates, the coverage can be changed to the new dates. You do have to pay the insurance in full up front and if you cancel completely you don't get your premium back, but you can change your dates without losing the money you paid for insurance.

 

Thank you very much for the suggestion. I also use tripinsurancestore and did confirm the availability of changing the dates if needed.