Yes, you do need insurance!

[SOMBRERO6]

We are supposed to be leaving Monday, Jan 19th on the Carnival Paradise. My Father-in-Law passed away yesterday. Now we are having a funeral instead. Please buy some kind of cruise insurance. We bought ours thru Carnival and I believe it will cover our air fare, also. It will be interesting to see how this all turns out, I think we will get 75% back on the cruise and most of the airfare. Things like this happen, he was a very important person in our lives. No regrets here!

[klfrodo]

Sorry for your loss.

 

Actually, you should get 100% of everything back according to what I just read http://www.carnival.com/about-carnival/vacation-protection.aspx

 

Carnival Cruise Cancellation & Interruption Fee Waiver

(For Specified Reasons).................................................Cash Refund Up to Total Cruise Vacation Cost

This Cancellation Fee Waiver Program is an addendum to your cruise Ticket Contract. Through the

Cancellation Fee Waiver Program, Carnival Cruise Lines will waive their standard cancellation provision and

refund to you IN CASH the otherwise non-refundable value of the unused portion of your prepaid cruise

vacation, should you or your traveling companion need to cancel or interrupt your cruise vacation for any

one of the following reasons (subject to the restrictions noted below**):

 

1. sickness, injury or death to yourself, a traveling companion, or members of either of your immediate

families which is diagnosed and treated by a physician at the time your cruise vacation is terminated

 

 

plus your independent booked air.

 

Part A. Travel Arrangement Protection

Trip Cancellation for Independently Booked Air……………………………Up To Total Original Airfare Cost

 

 

The 75% was only if you cancelled for a non covered reason.

Death of immediate family member is a covered event.

Edited January 17, 2015 by klfrodo

[vwrestler171]

I would look into a 3rd party for insurance though. Insuremytrip.com had several different options with better prices for my cruises.

[sirwired]

You'll certainly get at least 75% of your cruise fare back as a credit.

 

If your FIL's death does not fall under the pre-ex exclusion, you'll get 100% of your cruise and airfare back, as cash.

 

I've also been very happy to have insurance; my father had to have an emergency bypass, and my wife and I were able to go help them out without any guilt on their part that we were sacrificing our vacation for them. They felt much better when they learned our only expense was to buy a new policy for the replacement vacation. That alone was more valuable to us than the entire cost of the vacation.

[sail7seas]

Sorry for your loss.

Hope insurance is processed smoothly and fully.

 

[Mr. Click]

Yes, we should buy cruise insurance... I started buying it years ago as protection in case my then elderly parents took ill or worse. I never needed it for them but last May I needed a cardiac cath two days before we were supposed to fly to AMS for a 12 night Baltic cruise. Of course I was not allowed to go, doctors orders. I had insurance so I got over 90% of my cruise fare, pre-paid hotel in AMS back and all of my airline change fees ($300 pp) covered. It added up to a lot of money and with that money, I booked a very similar cruise for this May....

[GeezerCouple]

Yes, we should buy cruise insurance... I started buying it years ago as protection in case my then elderly parents took ill or worse. I never needed it for them but last May I needed a cardiac cath two days before we were supposed to fly to AMS for a 12 night Baltic cruise. Of course I was not allowed to go, doctors orders. I had insurance so I got over 90% of my cruise fare, pre-paid hotel in AMS back and all of my airline change fees ($300 pp) covered. It added up to a lot of money and with that money, I booked a very similar cruise for this May....

 

Very glad that you had such a good outcome medically, and are getting ready for your replacement cruise in May :)

 

Why was your reimbursement only 90%? Was that the percentage specified in your policy (known/planned in advance), or was there a problem with collecting something, either a percentage of total costs, or a particular cost that was "not covered"?

 

What company?

 

Thanks!

We are always "on alert" to do our best so that if we buy insurance and then need to file a claim, we don't get caught in some unexpected "fine print" that we misunderstood. (Yes, we read it all, tedious though that is, but legalese/insurance-jargon might not always mean what it seems to mean to the non-expert, alas.)

 

GeezerCouple

[Mr. Click]

Geezers, me too..... I got very very lucky with my medical issue...

I had insured with Squaremouth and their subsidary Tin Leg who they highly recommended. We paid for part of our cruise with a $500 Celebrity gift card that I had gotten with credit card points. Tin Leg refused to cover that because it was not "Cash, check or credit card". They were not fun to deal with after my initial phone call from the hospital. They demanded all kinds of paper work, lost half of it when we sent it in and never told us it was lost until I called for the third time. We also lost some value in the coverage of our 3 night pre-paid hotel in Amsterdam because of exchange rates. That was minor but it sure would be nice to have that $500 back, even as a Celebrity credit. The new trip is not insured with Squaremouth/Tin Leg.....

[GeezerCouple]

Geezers, me too..... I got very very lucky with my medical issue...

I had insured with Squaremouth and their subsidary Tin Leg who they highly recommended. We paid for part of our cruise with a $500 Celebrity gift card that I had gotten with credit card points. Tin Leg refused to cover that because it was not "Cash, check or credit card". They were not fun to deal with after my initial phone call from the hospital. They demanded all kinds of paper work, lost half of it when we sent it in and never told us it was lost until I called for the third time. We also lost some value in the coverage of our 3 night pre-paid hotel in Amsterdam because of exchange rates. That was minor but it sure would be nice to have that $500 back, even as a Celebrity credit. The new trip is not insured with Squaremouth/Tin Leg.....

 

Again, we are glad that YOU are okay. That's what counts!

 

Yeah, that $500 credit isn't nice to lose. After all, it's an extra $500 that you now need to spend to "replace" that lost trip, right?

We now wonder (worry!) about using up our bazillion airline mileage points, for just that reason.

 

Anyway, we used TravelInsured, recommended by Steve at

TripInsuranceStore.com

 

Yes, we sing his/their praises, but have no affiliation with any of them other than as very satisfied customers.

 

But the more we hear sad tales here (and elsewhere) about travel insurance "problems", the more we appreciate the experience we had.

 

Once we got all the documentation in (turned out the physician completed all parts of the form except for the "diagnosis"!), it was maybe a week until we got a phone call that the check was being sent.

And it arrived as expected.

 

I think we ended up losing $19, for one small non-refundable charge.

But the paperwork, all of the charge statements for months and months... we changed plane reservations, refundable tickets for a few rounds, made assorted payments at various different times, then at the last minute NCL gave us a better deal on the same plane tickets at final payment, so that meant the entire cruise payment was a "do over" as a combo, etc.), and I had trouble sorting it all out...

 

By that time, we were just happy DH was okay!

It just wasn't worth going through all the paperwork again.

 

We couldn't have been more satisfied. ($19 was a teeny fraction of the total claim.)

We had NONE of the hassles we've read about all too often.

 

I'm assuming that the waiver of pre-existing condition exclusions helped. After all, they had no need to search through old medical records to try to find a reason to deny the claim.

 

We'll probably only work with Steve, and the insurers that he's vetted.

 

GeezerCouple

[Mr. Click]

Bottom line is that $500 was lost to us.....is it the end of the world? Nope. I avoided the end of the world by going to the ER at DW's insistance 5 days before we were supposed to fly out. I got home again, with two stents in two major arteries they day we were supposed to fly out...But I did walk into the hospital and I did walk out so I am not complaining and my health is a whole lot better now, but I miss prime rib and filet meignon.. a lot.

 

I did have a long talk, several actually, with Steve and his staff about my experience with Square Mouth/Tin Leg and then insured the new trip with him. He is the man for sure. I also learned to just insure the value of the airline change fees, not the entire airfare. I guess if I had not called the airline to cancel I could have gotten all of the money back but..not the way I work.

[GeezerCouple]

Bottom line is that $500 was lost to us.....is it the end of the world? Nope. I avoided the end of the world by going to the ER at DW's insistance 5 days before we were supposed to fly out. I got home again, with two stents in two major arteries they day we were supposed to fly out...But I did walk into the hospital and I did walk out so I am not complaining and my health is a whole lot better now, but I miss prime rib and filet meignon.. a lot.

 

I did have a long talk, several actually, with Steve and his staff about my experience with Square Mouth/Tin Leg and then insured the new trip with him. He is the man for sure. I also learned to just insure the value of the airline change fees, not the entire airfare. I guess if I had not called the airline to cancel I could have gotten all of the money back but..not the way I work.

 

Re your

"I guess if I had not called the airline to cancel I could have gotten all of the money back but..not the way I work."

 

Probably NOT, so you definitely did the right thing, in both senses of the word.

 

We had to provide PROOF that we had cancelled the flight, even though in our case it was clearly totally non-refundable. (Booked, in the end, through NCL, and their "penalty" chart showed 100% penalty for both cruise and airfare.)

 

I would assume that is fairly standard, but I'm NOT the expert on this.

The reasoning seemed to be that "just in case there was any refund possible", the insurer obviously doesn't want to pay for that part of the cost because the passenger didn't "cancel".

 

Also, I think, because in some cases when the tickets can be rebooked with a change fee, the insurer doesn't want to end up paying in full, when there i still some residual value.

 

The important thing, obviously, is to know what one must do per the terms of one's specific policy, and do it.

 

Again, Steve and staff were the ones to help us through the process, and it's certainly possibly that we would not have cancelled the air tickets, because it was "obvious" that the penalty was 100%.

(Our travel agent sent us a document that she had notified the airline of our cancellation, and that was among the documents we sent in for the claim.)

 

GeezerCouple

[Mr. Click]

the staff at Square Mouth were very sorry it was taking so long to process the claim " it is within industry standards" I never knew losing submitted paper work was part of the industry standard....I am just glad I put all of those scanned documents on a flash drive before we left NJ for 6 weeks....

The main reason I called the airline was we were traveling with friends and we were all on one res and they had to separate the two couples, cancel us and double check to make sure our friends were still booked all the way since part of their trip home was on a code share. The really stupid thing....we got two checks, one for each of us to cover the cruise fare and the $300 change fee on the same day we got emails demanding proof that we were charged the change fee. Tin Leg also wanted to challenge my illness as a pre-existing condition. I had never seen a cardiologist before this event. Never had any reported symptons or issues. I thought it was something minor and only went to the ER because DW insisted and we were leaving in 5 days... The lesson here, besides being careful with your trip insurance purchase is to listen to your body closely

[Sailboat-Man]

Sombrero06,

 

Sorry for your loss and thank you for your posting which benefits our knowledge base. Just for discussion, are there some out there who have done a cost benefit combined with risk analysis to determine if cruise insurance is worthwhile? Please read further and answer my question below.

 

We never buy insurance. In the past, my wife and I have spent less than $2,000 total for our flights to Florida and cruise line charges, going on five/six night winter, inside cabin, Caribbean cruises with RCCL. We just decided that we could afford to lose $2,000. We are not trying to be reckless. We made the informed decision to save that money that we would have spent on insurance, and, instead, use it to pay for another winter cruise vacation. *** Here's the question for further discussion. Will we save $2,000 by not buying insurance for 20 cruises (couple x 10 cruises)??

Edited January 22, 2015 by Sailboat-Man
Correction.

[klfrodo]

Sombrero06,

 

Sorry for your loss and thank you for your posting which benefits our knowledge base. Just for discussion, are there some out there who have done a cost benefit combined with risk analysis to determine if cruise insurance is worthwhile? Please read further and answer my question below.

 

We never buy insurance. In the past, my wife and I have spent less than $2,000 total for our flights to Florida and cruise line charges, going on five/six night winter, inside cabin, Caribbean cruises with RCCL. We just decided that we could afford to lose $2,000. We are not trying to be reckless. We made the informed decision to save that money that we would have spent on insurance, and, instead, use it to pay for another winter cruise vacation. *** Here's the question for further discussion. Will we save $2,000 by not buying insurance for 20 cruises (couple x 10 cruises)??

 

 

There are many people on this board who decide to self insure which is basically what you are choosing to do. And that's okay when it's an informed decision.

 

It's not okay when someone wants to save $100, then something happens and they come here to complain.

 

Myself? I can afford the loss of the cruise. I can afford the loss of the airfare. Wouldn't be happy, but wouldn't crush me financially.

What I can't afford the risk on is medical, evacuation, and repatriation of remains, especially when there are known pre-existing conditions involved

Edited January 22, 2015 by klfrodo

[Mr. Click]

Klfrodo makes a very valid point, or points really. We have bought cruise insurance in the past because we had elderly parents and never knew if travel plans would change last minute AND we needed medical insurance beyond the USA. When it is is just airfare invovled we don't insure the trip itself but when it comes to packages like cruises we have. It is all about the risks you are willing and able to take. Personally I am glad I had my last cruise insured since I had to cancel last minute because of my own medical issues. The one thing I did learn going forward is to not insure the whole airfare, just the change fees as far as a cancellation goes. On our 8 or so cruises I have spent about $1500 on insurance. My one claim was for just over $6000.

[Jimsgirl]

I have written this in another thread, but after reading "Sailboat Man " I do feel it might help repeating my remarks.

 

I did many cruises, bought insurance that was never used . Then in October, 7 days into a cruise (ship in middle of English channel 7,000 miles from embarkation) I had a stroke and was sent to hospital in Belgium. Claimed for 12 days unused cruise costs,($4,000+ ),$3,000 costs for emergency care in Ships medical centre, Hospital costs for 6 days stay there, but the real bonus of the insurance was being medi-vacced back to Florida.

 

The insurance paid for a nurse to come to the Hospital in Belgium, take care of arranging release, obtained medications, then a car wa provided to take us to Brussels for flight home. Business class for both of us back to Fort Myers Florida,I needed oxygen and medication during journey of 13 hours flying time (also neded help with personal needs as I could not walk, having lost use of left side of my body. A car to hospital in my home town, ( hospital arranged by insurance ), the nurse stayed with me until I was in bed in my room there. I could never have reached my home town without all that care. I travelled solo.

 

Since I never received a bill I cannot say how much it cost but anyone who has flown for 13 hours business class, plus 2-cars each with driver , can imagine the $$$$ for two people , plus paying the nurses fees for the 3 days needed.

 

My advice is that Insurance that includes return to home from wherever you are stricken is an absolute must.