buy from insuremytrip or direct from company?

[poss]

Any advantage to buying from one or the other? (We'll be doing CSA.)

Thank you.

[cherylandtk]

Not really, if you access the purchase page through the agent link, then that agent gets a commission for the sale, but you pay the same price. I like going through my agent just because I have someone to call if I have questions or an issue comes up and I need their help in getting information, forms, phone numbers, etc.

[poss]

My agent doesn't sell the CSA policy that we want (custom). They sell a more expensive CSA policy (freestyle). That's why I need to buy it (custom) either directly from CSA or from insuremytrip. I've never done the latter and was wondering if there's any advantage to doing it that way. Thanks.

[SlmGT]

My agent doesn't sell the CSA policy that we want (custom). They sell a more expensive CSA policy (freestyle). That's why I need to buy it (custom) either directly from CSA or from insuremytrip. I've never done the latter and was wondering if there's any advantage to doing it that way. Thanks.

 

I was told by Debbie at Insuremytrip that they act as a "consumer advocate" if any claims issues/questions arise. I am not convinced it is incredibly necessary to have a consumer advocate, but I see no reason not to go through insuremytrip. Insuremytrip has longer operating hours and customer service than some insurance companies themselves, so their limited help is of potential help should anything go wrong. Essentially, the price is the same [at least in my case] so since they have no fees/restrictions of their own, I see reason to use them as my middleman. It can only help IMO if everything is the same anyway - plus, I used IMT to find the insurance to begin with, so in all fairness they deserve the commission.

[poss]

Slm: What you say makes good sense. It's interesting though-- when I asked insuremytrip whether there's any special advantage in booking with them rather than directly with CSA, they said no.

[jwright98]

I am currently shopping and this is a good question. I went on squaremouth.com and found a travel guard adventure policy. But when I went to travel guard's website there's no mention of the adventure policy. In general I was able to get much more information on squaremouth's website (even insuremytrip) than travel guard's site. I printed the certificate for the adventure policy so I could read the fine print on squaremouth's site. I might call both (squaremouth and travel guard) jsut to make sure everything jives. This is my first purchase and I wanted to be sure our scuba was covered.

 

I like squaremouth's site over insuremytrip in that it quickly gave other information on the compare page, such as "cancel for work reasons" coverage and whether it was primary or secondary (you had to click on each quote on insuremytrip to get the primary/secondary information, and I didn't see the cancel for work reasons listed unless I then clicked on the details, too much clicking).

[cruiseco]

Slm: What you say makes good sense. It's interesting though-- when I asked insuremytrip whether there's any special advantage in booking with them rather than directly with CSA, they said no.

 

They're right. From the consumer's point of view there's no difference. However, if you think that insuremytrip (or any other online insurance comparison site) has provided a valuable service that has helped you with your buying decision why not use them and let them earn a commission to help pay their bills?

[cruiseco]

I am currently shopping and this is a good question. I went on squaremouth.com and found a travel guard adventure policy. But when I went to travel guard's website there's no mention of the adventure policy. .

 

The Travel Guard site is a little screwy about this. They ask you to select a type of travel (single trip, annual, cruise, etc) so you probably selected "cruise" since that's what you're doing. There's another choice -- Adventure -- that you have to select if you want to get information on that plan. It won't show up if you select "cruise". Dumb, but that's the way they're set up. I guess they assume that anyone going on a cruise will not be doing any activities that need the Adventure plan to get coverage for.

 

Squaremouth on the other hand has it lumped in with all of their other single-trip policies so it will show up with them every time.