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Buy now, or later for July 2019 cruise?


qkd0314
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We just put down our deposit for a 9 day cruise next summer. All three of us traveling are under 40, but we do have elderly parents at home. Pre-existing conditions are not an issue for us.

 

My Citi credit card offers up to $3,000 for each traveler for interruption or cancellation, but I am looking to purchase additional coverage. I know there are more options (I.e. cancel for any reason, work reasons, etc) if trip insurance is booked within 15 days of initial deposit, and that window is closing.

 

Any insight on whether I should book now, or wait? Thanks in advance!

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It's really personal choice.

 

I always mention to people who say they have no pre-existing conditions.....you need to qualify that. You don't have any pre-existing conditions now. You MIGHT end up with one down the road. An illness or issue that crops up within what is considered the lookback period.

 

If the lookback is 180 days, anything that comes up six months before you said is now a pre-existing condition, and one that may be more challenging to find coverage for.

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When I purchase my cruise, I almost immediately purchase the cruise insurance. The main concern is the medical evacuation coverage which can run you over $100K if you have to be medflighted back to the United States.

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  • 2 weeks later...
And remember that some policies allow you to insure only the deposit amount and add to the insurance as you make additional payments. This is what we do.

May I ask what policy allows that. I am considering putting a deposit on a cruise . I know I would get the deposit back if we decide not to go, but what happens to the cost of the travel insurance

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There are a couple of providers that will provide a pre-existing conditions waiver if you purchase the insurance before final payment, cover the full cost of your trip and are medically able to travel when you buy the insurance. Nationwide Choice Cruise is the one I bought.

 

When I paid the initial refundable deposit on a cruise last fall, I didn't want to buy the insurance because I wasn't totally decided on taking the trip but wanted to take advantage of a special in case I did. I bought Nationwide Choice Cruise when I made final payment. I don't have any experience with them on claims. So far, I've never needed to make a claim with any cruise insurance.

 

Now I'm looking at policies for a cruise I just booked and Nationwide Choice Cruise stacks up pretty well with the other policies that provide what I want so I didn't lose much by waiting on the other cruise to buy it at final payment.

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There are a couple of providers that will provide a pre-existing conditions waiver if you purchase the insurance before final payment, cover the full cost of your trip and are medically able to travel when you buy the insurance. Nationwide Choice Cruise is the one I bought.

 

When I paid the initial refundable deposit on a cruise last fall, I didn't want to buy the insurance because I wasn't totally decided on taking the trip but wanted to take advantage of a special in case I did. I bought Nationwide Choice Cruise when I made final payment. I don't have any experience with them on claims. So far, I've never needed to make a claim with any cruise insurance.

 

Now I'm looking at policies for a cruise I just booked and Nationwide Choice Cruise stacks up pretty well with the other policies that provide what I want so I didn't lose much by waiting on the other cruise to buy it at final payment.

 

We've used CSA once, when we missed the regular 20-day of initial payment for our usual policies with Travel Insured. (We really didn't expect to take the trip, and as the date approached for final payment... we surprised ourselves!)

 

But we have found that at least for the types of policies we get, true, the pricing for the CSA (no later than 24 hours after final payment) was similar to the TI (start insurance within 20 days of first payment), but the coverage wasn't quite as good.

Both offered the critical (for us) waiver of the exclusion of pre-existing conditions.

 

More importantly, however, for CSA, the CFAR (Cancel For Any Reason) coverage would have been much more expensive, and for most of our trips, we do need that.

 

But starting the insurance within 20 days of initial payment means only paying insurance for that deposit, so that starting premium isn't much.

(And to answer the question above, IF you cancel the trip after insuring only the deposit, no, the insurance premium isn't refunded. However, at least for our type of coverage with Travel Insured, we can apply that premium to a different trip, once, within certain limits. We've used that, to transfer the paid premium to a different trip that we *did* take.)

 

One more thing: We have had several claims with Travel Insured, including two reasonably large amounts, and they've paid promptly, without any nonsense.

For this reason, we prefer to continue our travel insurance with them, no surprise.

 

We've always purchased our policies through

www.TripInsuranceStore.com

 

We strongly recommend CALLING them, and not relying upon the online summaries of the various policies and comparisons. This is a time when "the fine print" can really matter. Most of the "travel insurance complaints" seem to involve not fully understanding what was/was not covered.

 

GC

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