Fresh member here - and in serious need of advice from experienced Cunard travellers.
I'm going on a cruise on Queen Victoria in two weeks' time together with my parents. I've been aware of the UK insurance requirements ever since I made our bookings, a few months ago, but didn't realize that they apply to us. We are Romanian nationals and it only recently became clear that our booking is still considered to be a UK booking, because I made it directly through the Cunard website. At the time of the booking I actually wrote to Cunard and their response did not clearly state that the UK terms apply to us.
My story is similar to others I've read on this forum: there's no local product to match UK insurance requirements, and I'm worried about being denied boarding, especially since my parents are around 70 and it's their first cruise 🙂 I've seen comments about insurance proof actually never being checked. We all have travel insurance, but can't match UK requirements because there's no way to get cover for pre-existing conditions. I've been in touch with my insurance broker and the closest thing would be a global insurance with a small cover (~20k Euro) for pre-existing condition episodes, which for my parents would cost as much as the cruise itself. For reference, the standard travel insurance coverage in Romania is around 50k Euro and pre-existing conditions aren't included.
I've just talked to Cunard customer support and, as expected, they upheld the terms on their website (I appreciated the operator's attitude, but in the end I didn't get any useful information).
I have a Revolut Metal insurance (via Xcover), which for a reasonable price provides a 10m Euro global coverage for a couple. I'm considering opening a Revolut Metal account for my parents, just for them to be able to show a paper with a high coverage if needed. It still wouldn't match UK requirements, obviously - but I'm guessing it could reduce the risk to be denied boarding. Just to be clear, I don't have a good opinion about Xcover, and have worked much better with local insurers in the past.
What do you think? Has anybody reading this ever been asked for proof of travel insurance? If yes, is that a thorough check? Are you aware of any situation when somebody has been denied boarding because if this?
I hate to be jury rigging my booking like this - I'm just looking to avoid a difficult situation.