How do I go about buying travel insurance if I don't know total vacation costs?

[Coarsegold_Mom]

Hi - I'm sure this is buried in the forum somewhere but if someone could point me in the right direction or give me some help that would be great.  We have put a deposit down for a cruise in October 2023.  We know the total for the cruise but we have no idea how much flights/hotels/excursions will be?  Our cruise agent gave us two quotes from Travel Guard but these are based only on the price of our cruise.  These quotes are good for 14 days from the date of our deposit.  However, I would like to include costs of airfare and hotel in as well.  Should I insure those separately later?  Do I guess at how much those will be?  I have no idea at this point if we will use miles or purchase tickets to Europe and home from the middle east.  I don't know how much we will spend on excursions.  Please help 🙂  We don't normally purchase insurance but we would like to you for this trip as it is so far out and our parents are getting older.  Thank You

[GeezerCouple]

9 minutes ago, Coarsegold_Mom said:

Hi - I'm sure this is buried in the forum somewhere but if someone could point me in the right direction or give me some help that would be great.  We have put a deposit down for a cruise in October 2023.  We know the total for the cruise but we have no idea how much flights/hotels/excursions will be?  Our cruise agent gave us two quotes from Travel Guard but these are based only on the price of our cruise.  These quotes are good for 14 days from the date of our deposit.  However, I would like to include costs of airfare and hotel in as well.  Should I insure those separately later?  Do I guess at how much those will be?  I have no idea at this point if we will use miles or purchase tickets to Europe and home from the middle east.  I don't know how much we will spend on excursions.  Please help 🙂  We don't normally purchase insurance but we would like to you for this trip as it is so far out and our parents are getting older.  Thank You

 

First, I strongly suggest that you contact a travel insurance broker and don't buy the coverage from your travel/cruise agent.  They are not specialists in travel *insurance*.

 

You will quickly learn that you very likely ONLY need to insure whatever you have already paid, such as the deposit.  Then one typically pays more as more non-refundable expenses are incurred (also within the 10-20 day time limit, same as with first payment).

 

You also might want to explore exactly what that coverage that is being sold to you (note: you are not buying it; it's being sold to you; you aren't making choices about what coverage you need or want).  What are the medical limits?  How are family members handled if they get critically ill or pass, and you want to return suddenly?  What about pre-existing conditions (which are defined differently than what we ordinarily think of in everyday life).

 

Would you purchase home insurance from the real estate agent?  Auto insurance from the car dealer?

 

Too many complaints here (and elsewhere) are because people didn't understand what they bought, and expected payment for a loss that was never covered in the first place.

 

We use

www.TripInsuranceStore.com - which is mentioned often here, as are a few other agencies.

 

GC

[Coarsegold_Mom]

Thank you.  So much I didn't know about only insuring what I have paid so far....and then having the ability to add to it.  So I think my $700 deposit was 9 days ago so I will give them a call this afternoon.  Also, point taken about buying specifically from someone who specializes in travel insurance.  Thank you for your quick response!

[GeezerCouple]

36 minutes ago, Coarsegold_Mom said:

Thank you.  So much I didn't know about only insuring what I have paid so far....and then having the ability to add to it.  So I think my $700 deposit was 9 days ago so I will give them a call this afternoon.  Also, point taken about buying specifically from someone who specializes in travel insurance.  Thank you for your quick response!

 

We have strong feelings about travel insurance (um, in case that wasn't obvious!).

We learned about it here on CC, before the first cruise that DH took (I had cruised before).  So we took out insurance.  It was a pricy cruise and we paid (through the cruise line, something we've never done again) for long-haul business class air.

 

And less than 2 weeks before our planned departure (that is, 100% penalty), DH had a medical emergency.  The only "travel" we did for quite a few weeks was to/from medical appointments.

We got all of our money back.

 

Yes, we could have "afforded" the loss (otherwise, we probably shouldn't have paid that much for a trip, etc.).  However, it was SO comforting to know we had that coverage.  There were quite a few times during those difficult weeks that we mumbled, "At least we won't have to pay a SECOND time for this trip later!"

 

Had we not had that insurance, it would have left such an unpleasant taste in our mouths that we probably wouldn't have booked another "expensive" trip.  Fortunately, we did have that coverage and felt comfortable planning more trips.  As it turned out, most of our trips were actually more than that first "expensive" trip! 😁

And we have had absolutely marvelous experiences!

 

Now, we are a bit older.  When we were younger, it never occurred to us to think about this.  OTOH, we didn't take distant trips then, either.   And there were very few pre-paid, non-refundable costs, so things were different in that way, too.

 

One other thing:  Just in case you are older, be aware that regular Medicare doesn't cover out of country medical care except for a few rare cases.  And most add-on policies have a very low lifetime limit.  Try to get insurance that has "primary" medical coverage.  That will then pay without first requiring a payment from any other health insurer, and won't then run up deductibles or out-of-pocket maximum totals, etc.

 

Have a great trip!

 

GC