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Insurance Question - any advice from others?


dekohman
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Hi all...have an insurance question and wondering if others have similar experience or information they can share.

 

Our Travel Agent is a good friend - we booked our cruise with him and we're a couple of weeks away from final payment and want to insure the trip. In his initial insurance bid, he included only the dates of the cruise and the cost of the cruise - but the dates didn't include that we were flying to Miami two days before sailing date nor the cost of the flights or hotel before the cruise.

 

In my experience with other types of insurance you have to insure all of the dates you want covered - and you'd have to include the full value you're insuring. (If for example you under-insure your home and suffer a total loss, the payout would be reduced by the percentage you under-valued it.)

 

I realize we'll probably never need the coverage, but it sort of feels that if I'm going to pay for coverage, I should make sure all of the dates and value of the trip are included in case I have to cancel the trip and want my money back. We are looking at "cancel for any reason" coverage.

 

Our Travel Agent IS digging into this more but I'm wondering whether there's something "special" about travel insurance in how the coverage dates/value are calculated - am I overreaching or being careful?

 

If anyone has experience with this, do tell! Thanks and happy cruising! :cool:

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You should insure everything is what we prefer.

 

Call Steve or one of his associates at The Trip Insurance Store (888) 407-3854.

You'll get travel insurance professional personal help from one of the best companies

in the business. We and many on these boards will recommend him "highly".

 

http://www.tripinsurancestore.com

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Hi all...have an insurance question and wondering if others have similar experience or information they can share.

 

Our Travel Agent is a good friend - we booked our cruise with him and we're a couple of weeks away from final payment and want to insure the trip. In his initial insurance bid, he included only the dates of the cruise and the cost of the cruise - but the dates didn't include that we were flying to Miami two days before sailing date nor the cost of the flights or hotel before the cruise.

 

In my experience with other types of insurance you have to insure all of the dates you want covered - and you'd have to include the full value you're insuring. (If for example you under-insure your home and suffer a total loss, the payout would be reduced by the percentage you under-valued it.)

 

I realize we'll probably never need the coverage, but it sort of feels that if I'm going to pay for coverage, I should make sure all of the dates and value of the trip are included in case I have to cancel the trip and want my money back. We are looking at "cancel for any reason" coverage.

 

Our Travel Agent IS digging into this more but I'm wondering whether there's something "special" about travel insurance in how the coverage dates/value are calculated - am I overreaching or being careful?

 

If anyone has experience with this, do tell! Thanks and happy cruising! :cool:

 

No surprise, we asked Steve (of www.TripInsuranceStore.com) about this, but keep in mind the answer ONLY applies to the specific policy type that we get.

 

Anyway, we often decide we are having a great time, and want to extend our trips (less so with cruises, given the ship is certainly less "flexible" than regular hotel-based trips, of course).

 

So he advised that once we depart, we can *NOT* lengthen the covered dates, so we should add extra days at the end, without increasing the coverage.

Extra costs wouldn't be covered, but in a case like an "extended" trip, we'd only be concerned about the extra dates, not extra charges, as we wouldn't be cancelling *both* the first part AND the added extra days at the end (which wouldn't occur in this scenario until we are well underway). We wouldn't have any additional costs, yet, at the point we left home.

 

We specifically were concerned about "what if" we extended our trip and *then* got sick (unlikely, but that's what insurance is for ... unlikely events) or had flight cancellations on the "new later flights home" or such.

 

Indeed, we are in Hong Kong now, and there is a Typhoon alert.

Weird to come back from dinner and find info under the hotel room door with "TYPHOON SAFETY ADVICE" - yikes!

We are covered if we can't fly out as scheduled, but IF we had extended our stay from something like a departure 2 days ago until 2 days in the future, we'd have to absorb all costs. Now? At least any costs would be covered.

(And I wouldn't mind being stranded here if costs were covered, but DH prefers to get home :-)

 

Just make SURE that you read all the "fine print" for the policy that YOU have, or are considering getting.

 

IF you haven't yet made final payment, you might consider calling Steve (or any of his associates) and ask them about coverage, as there are policies still available to you.

Even if you need pre-existing condition coverage, CSA offers a policy that can be purchased as late as "within 24 hours of final payment" (defined narrowly, of course).

 

Good luck.

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Guest maddycat

We also buy our travel insurance through the Trip Insurance Store. We cover all non-refundable costs. With a cruise we don't include the taxes, fees and port expenses in the covered amount since those are refunded if we have to cancel the cruise.

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You should insure everything is what we prefer.

 

Call Steve or one of his associates at The Trip Insurance Store (888) 407-3854.

You'll get travel insurance professional personal help from one of the best companies

in the business. We and many on these boards will recommend him "highly".

 

www.tripinsurancestore.com

 

THANKS! I had actually found the link to Steve's website after I posted and did a little digging - and there I found information that said - to paraphrase - if you want to be fully insured for "cancel anytime" or "pre-existing condition waivers" you should include all of your travel dates and all of your costs!

 

I just met with my travel agent (beer on the porch - he's a friend) and he's working on clarifying, but seemed more inline with the advice on Steve's website. The TA I use uses a policy from Allianz. Thanks for the tip!

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THANKS! I had actually found the link to Steve's website after I posted and did a little digging - and there I found information that said - to paraphrase - if you want to be fully insured for "cancel anytime" or "pre-existing condition waivers" you should include all of your travel dates and all of your costs!

 

I just met with my travel agent (beer on the porch - he's a friend) and he's working on clarifying, but seemed more inline with the advice on Steve's website. The TA I use uses a policy from Allianz. Thanks for the tip!

You're very welcome...but don't hesitate to call Steve (such a nice guy) for any more clarification you need before deciding which policy to purchase for your specific needs. You won't get any high pressure sales pitch from him just the facts.

 

Best of luck on your travels.

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You better cover yourself, door to door. I didn't pay attention to dates in 2015 once, and was just insured for the cruise dates. We went to the port town the day before and that evening I fell and hit my head and was taken to an ER. I hadn't met my deductible and some things like MRIs were only covered at 80% and I ended up $3000 out of pocket. Learn from my mistake, which will never be made again!

Edited by internetwhiz
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If you used a MC, Visa, Amex you may well have any travel that you booked automatically covered up to their limit.

 

The insurance people don't seem to want you to know this, but it is worth exploring. Why pay for coverage you already have.

 

Otoh, there are CC's that do not have the coverage.

 

Be informed! :cool:

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Credit card insurance plans are ok for recovering costs of cancelled, delayed, missed travel and lodging but a good trip insurance policy also covers medical expenses. Most US health insurance policies do not cover you out of the country. Something else you need to check out. Medical bills out of the country or on the ship can add up in a hurry. Another good thing to talk to Steve and his staff about. They really are experts, not just sales people. They always ask a lot of questions to make sure you are buying the right policy for your individual needs. We make it a point to insure our travel plans from the day we plan to leave home until a few days after our planned return. That buffer on the back end rarely costs anymore but if you are delayed for any reason and your insurance expires on the the last day of planned travel you can have some real problems if you have a problem on those extra days.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just updating my original post - we wound up covering all dates and all costs. I suppose technically things like port charges don't have to be included, but it did work out like I thought it should. My TA company can arrange"cancel anytime" coverage through Allianz through the final payment date. Most policies I've seen require that to be purchased at the time of initial deposit.

 

Sent from my XT1575 using Forums mobile app

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