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Cruise insurance yay or nay


maryhou
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We just booked a Christmas cruise.  Do you normally buy the cruise insurance?  We have never bought it before but my husband insisted this time with covid.  So I get the bullet and bought it just on case.  We've both been vaccinated so praying we don't end up sick.  Have you cruised since they've started back up?  Did you feel safe?  Did you choose to wear a mask on the boat or is it now required?

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21 minutes ago, maryhou said:

 We have never bought it before

but my husband insisted this time with Covid.  ===> I would too

 

 We've both been vaccinated so praying we don't end up sick. 

 

I don't normally buy travel insurance

-unless the (UK) cruise line requires it

but your decision above makes sense in this pandemic circumstance!

 

 


Like you... we are vaccinated

-plus most of our friends and acquaintances on the island, as well.

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30 minutes ago, maryhou said:

We just booked a Christmas cruise.  Do you normally buy the cruise insurance?  We have never bought it before but my husband insisted this time with covid.  So I get the bullet and bought it just on case.  We've both been vaccinated so praying we don't end up sick.  Have you cruised since they've started back up?  Did you feel safe?  Did you choose to wear a mask on the boat or is it now required?

With Covid yes.  Also make sure to get some medical insurance with all this going on.

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All travel insurance is a scam.  Believe me, I've bought it before thinking I was safe only to lose out 75%+ of my fare because of some BS in the fine print for Norwegian's "peace of mind" (or whatever the F they call it) insurance.

 

Here's what you do:

 

Every cruise you book, DONT buy insurance.  Instead, put the price of the travel insurance you'd typically buy into a dedicated savings account (look into online banks that let you create as many subaccounts as you want) for "Travel Insurance".  I guarantee you by the time you actually NEED travel insurance, you will have enough in that account to pay for your lost fare and a free cruise on top of that.

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We have cruised many, many times, and always purchase travel insurance- but never through the cruise line.  We purchase Travelguard.   We have used it 2x in the past, and the cost we have laid out for the insurance all these years was "paid back" the first time we needed to use it while cruising.  My "healthy" dd was off-loaded in Belize and hospitalized for 3 days.  I stayed with her, and all of the hospital, airline tickets back to the U.S., food and hotel costs were paid back by the insurance, including trip interruption.   Our bills were way over $10,000.  Many people do not believe in purchasing it, but we would never travel without it - especially now with covid.

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I believe OP (and husband)  is not concerned with the trip cancellation part and most people shouldn't be.

 

The important part is the medical coverage in case of injury or illness when out of the US-your regular health insurance will not likely cover this, especially if you need (want) to get back to the US mainland for treatment.

 

The insurance purchased through the cruise line is not really enough (for my next cruise $10,000), so I will be looking to get a direct policy.

 

In fact, here in NY,  the Sate insurance regulator now longer allows the sale of some of the cruise line's policies to be sold to us and are recommending higher level coverage (including cancel for any reason) from authorized insurance carriers.

 

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Buying trip insurance is a tough decision. Personally, we always buy it. I'm in the private air charter business. A flight to take me home from Nassau would be over $15K, not counting any fees if I were transported by helicopter from the ship to the closest land based hospital, plus the fees the local doctors charge. 

 

Call it a ripoff, but like car insurance, you really don't need it until you need it. 

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11 minutes ago, ngrund said:

I believe OP (and husband)  is not concerned with the trip cancellation part and most people shouldn't be.

 

The important part is the medical coverage in case of injury or illness when out of the US-your regular health insurance will not likely cover this, especially if you need (want) to get back to the US mainland for treatment.

 

The insurance purchased through the cruise line is not really enough (for my next cruise $10,000), so I will be looking to get a direct policy.

 

In fact, here in NY,  the Sate insurance regulator now longer allows the sale of some of the cruise line's policies to be sold to us and are recommending higher level coverage (including cancel for any reason) from authorized insurance carriers.

 


Previously in New York, Cancel for Any Reason insurance was not allowed by the state agency that regulates insurance because it was not considered insurance at all. The purchaser would be able to decide for himself if and when he wanted to cancel, so the regulators determined that it was not truly covering a risk, thus not insurance.

 

Since then state law has changed to allow it, but it must be sold as a separate policy. A person must not be required to buy other coverage in order to get it. That is why New York does not allow some cruise line insurance policies. It is not because of the level of coverage. It is because it is sold together with other comprehensive benefits in one plan.

 

You are correct that $10,000 is a minimal amount of coverage for medical. Check with your primary insurance to see if you are covered out of country. If so, the $10,000 could be used to cover deductibles and co-pays required by primary. Medicare will not cover you out of country, but some Advantage or supplements may offer some benefits.

 

Keep in mind is that the evacuation portion of the policy is for medical emergencies. It will not fly you home just because you test positive.

 

Another thing is that quarantine comes under the trip delay and/or trip interruption. It is not clear how quarantine will be handled. In most cases that I’ve heard of people are confined to their cabins or moved to one designated for quarantine. Even if you don’t quarantine ashore, the policy may reimburse you for the cruise days you lost while confined.

 

Buying travel insurance can be tricky because the language is difficult to get through. Read carefully and ask questions before you buy so you have realistic expectations of what your policy will cover.

 

 

 

 

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19 minutes ago, eagletwo said:

Buying trip insurance is a tough decision. Personally, we always buy it. I'm in the private air charter business. A flight to take me home from Nassau would be over $15K, not counting any fees if I were transported by helicopter from the ship to the closest land based hospital, plus the fees the local doctors charge. 

 

Call it a ripoff, but like car insurance, you really don't need it until you need it. 


You know exactly how expensive it is, but insurance will not pay for a charter. Royal has flown some people home as part of their port agreement with the Bahamas, but that is not the way insurance will deal with it. Air evac is for medical emergencies beyond the scope of any local facilities.

 

You don’t have to worry about the helicopter part. That, too, is reserved for the direst emergencies and is conducted by the equivalent of our Coast Guard at no cost to you. They are the ones who have the equipment and training. Insurance gets involved when you hit land.

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I never use to buy it, but for the last few years I always purchase it.  I'm not concerned about the cost of the cruise (I typically get pretty decent casino deals), but purchase it strictly in case something happens onboard. 

 

I knew someone who fell down some stairs and broke her hip - she had to be hospitalized in San Juan for several days and then fly home.   I have cruised regularly for the last 15 years and have been onboard several times when someone had to be airlifted off the ship.  I also use to work onboard Carnival back in the 80's and it was not uncommon to have to schedule an airlift for injured or ill passengers and crew. 

 

When I was younger I didn't think about the need, but as I've "matured" I wouldn't cruise without insurance.  It's really not that expensive, and though thankfully I've never had to use it, to me it's worth the peace of mind.

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We haven't ever bought it before and we had a close call 2 years ago on the Vista. DW had emergency brain surgery a week after we got home. She had bad headaches during the cruise. It started the first night and through some highs and lows it progressed. She doesn't remember half of the cruise. Now with covid and me having cervical fusion surgery we decided to take out a yearly travel insurance plan. And it covers the pandemic. It's just $279 a year. 

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We have an annual insurance policy and would never travel without insurance.  I guess if you have no issue with possibly paying huge sums of money out of pocket in case someone in your family had an accident or illness out of the country, then it may be worth the risk.  Nobody knows if they will get sick or have an accident.  As far as cancellation insurance, that is no big deal to me.  The cost of the trip is nothing compared to the possible costs of a hospital visit or evacuation in another country.

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2 hours ago, croix153 said:

All travel insurance is a scam.  Believe me, I've bought it before thinking I was safe only to lose out 75%+ of my fare because of some BS in the fine print for Norwegian's "peace of mind" (or whatever the F they call it) insurance.

 

Here's what you do:

 

Every cruise you book, DONT buy insurance.  Instead, put the price of the travel insurance you'd typically buy into a dedicated savings account (look into online banks that let you create as many subaccounts as you want) for "Travel Insurance".  I guarantee you by the time you actually NEED travel insurance, you will have enough in that account to pay for your lost fare and a free cruise on top of that.

You made the mistake of buying the BS insurance policy from NCL.  

Now, over the years I have had 35 cruises over 35 years and only bought it twice.  BUT, now that Covid is here combined with retirement and many cruises lined up (15 over 27 months) I will be purchasing an annual policy instead of individual ones that only cover you for 1 cruise.

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2 hours ago, AtSeaWithChris said:

We haven't ever bought it before and we had a close call 2 years ago on the Vista. DW had emergency brain surgery a week after we got home. She had bad headaches during the cruise. It started the first night and through some highs and lows it progressed. She doesn't remember half of the cruise. Now with covid and me having cervical fusion surgery we decided to take out a yearly travel insurance plan. And it covers the pandemic. It's just $279 a year. 

Would you have some suggestions of companies that sell annual travel plans?

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Vaccination means nothing for this pandemic at the moment. Not only from the normal issues that could happen, covid raises the issues exponentially and complete out of your control. If you are sick enough or injured enough, Carnival can force debark you from the ship with 100% of everything at your expense. Then, you are left to everything that the port country requires which could be medical evac from the country which would be insanely expensive. You have to decide if $200-$300 is worth the potential of a $20k - $40k private charter medical evac flight.

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 We buy insurance basically to cover medical and medical evacuation. As others have said not cruise line insurance. Almost half our cruises have been in Europe and I shudder at what the cost of medical evacuation would be.

 

And I do not see not having to use it as a loss. I'm happy when the car insurance does not need to be used, so why should I not be happy when everything goes well on a cruise? (And the time my car burst into flame, I was not happy but was happy that I did have insurance.)

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8 hours ago, AtSeaWithChris said:

We haven't ever bought it before and we had a close call 2 years ago on the Vista. DW had emergency brain surgery a week after we got home. She had bad headaches during the cruise. It started the first night and through some highs and lows it progressed. She doesn't remember half of the cruise. Now with covid and me having cervical fusion surgery we decided to take out a yearly travel insurance plan. And it covers the pandemic. It's just $279 a year. 

Trouble with the annual plans is the medical coverage isn’t great.

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Just now, mollygirl said:

Trouble with the annual plans is the medical coverage isn’t great.

We have pretty good insurance from BCBS of AL and just need a basic plan. The one we bought has 20k medical, 100,000 medical transportation which is enough for us. 

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Yes, always have travel insurance, especially at this time.

 

We haven't cruised since the restart began, so I can't answer that question except to say that we have a cruise booked in December and I believe we're probably safer on a cruise ship than most places on shore.

We'll wear masks in accordance with the cruiseline's protocols.

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