Best travel insurance

[ThaNectar]

Thoughts on best travel insurance companies?

We are already booked and leave in 10 days.

 

[ColeThornton]

8 minutes ago, ThaNectar said:

Thoughts on best travel insurance companies?

We are already booked and leave in 10 days.

 

 

 

There's a whole forum on Cruise/Travel insurance with lots of great info.  Here's the link for you:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/499-cruisetravel-insurance/

Edited September 14, 2022 by ColeThornton

[mondello]

Yeah, lately I’ve considered buying last minute travel insurance. I know I’ll be there come Hell or high water. However, can’t seem to count on the airlines anymore.

[sgttami]

When I traveled frequently I bought Travel Guard Annual Policy.  It covered ALL my trips over 12 months for one price and was the best coverage.

 

I've never traveled anywhere without insurance.

[cruisingguy007]

4 minutes ago, mondello said:

Yeah, lately I’ve considered buying last minute travel insurance. I know I’ll be there come Hell or high water. However, can’t seem to count on the airlines anymore.

 

Be careful with this, you need to understand pre-existing conditon coverage and lookback periods, buying last min could jeopardize some of this coverage, something as simple as adjusting meds. It's important to know these periods for each policy, the time-frames vary per policy. There really is not a best policy, the one that offers the coverage you want/need, at the lowest price and without mumbojumbo exclusions is the best. The cruiseline insurance is usually the worst option unless you're up there in age, there are various search engines like insuremytrip and such that do comparisons for base prices and then you can finalize with addons or additional coverage.     

[Babr]

12 minutes ago, mondello said:

Yeah, lately I’ve considered buying last minute travel insurance. I know I’ll be there come Hell or high water. However, can’t seem to count on the airlines anymore.

 

If you are concerned that you’ll miss your cruise because of a cancelled or delayed flight, look for a policy that has Missed Connection coverage. Not all do, and there are varying stipulations such as length of delay before it will pay.

 

A call to a professional like one of the people at Trip Insurance Store is in order to help you find the right policy. Tell them what you are concerned about, and let them direct you. It does not cost any more to buy from them because insurance is regulated by the states.

 

 

[klfrodo]

28 minutes ago, mondello said:

Yeah, lately I’ve considered buying last minute travel insurance. I know I’ll be there come Hell or high water. However, can’t seem to count on the airlines anymore.

Not sure what your expectation would be from Travel Insurance based on this comment.

The airline is going to give you a travel credit for future air travel if a flight is cancelled for some reason. They will rebook for a cancelled flight. The Travel insurance will consider this as a refund.

The best you could hope for would be reimbursed for hotel and meals under Trip Delay. (Most Trip Delay or Trip Interruption policies require that the delay be 5 hours on some policies even up to 12 or more hours on others)

 

The marketing for buying your air travel from the cruise line says they will get you to your destination. However, the fine print in their marketing brochure says they will attempt to do their best. The fine print in the cruise contract says they are not responsible.

 

IF you have Cancel For Any Reason coverage, 3rd party insurance requires you cancel 48 hours before trip begins. Cruise line insurance allows you to cancel up to scheduled sailing time.

 

 

To answer the OP's question. The best insurance policy is the one you never need. The second is a policy you buy from a broker like Trip Insurance Store or Insure My Trip or someplace where they can discuss with you what your needs are and how to best protect against the losses you want to be insured against.

 

Myself? I don't want to lose any money or my vacation/holiday, but I can absorb the cruise cost. What I cannot absorb is the potential cost of medical and evac. Those are the hotspots for me.

Edited September 14, 2022 by klfrodo

[mondello]

@klfrodo I haven’t missed any cruises but, I have had 2 flights cancelled since the start of the Covid era. My original post refers to the fact the airlines don’t care if I miss my cruise.

[donaldsc]

There is no "best" travel insurance.  There is only what is best for you.  We don't know you.  We can't help you until you provide more information.  You need to figure out what you need and then review the available options.  Also call InsureMyTrip or Trip Insurance store and talk to them.  Another question - why did you wait so long?

 

DON

Edited September 16, 2022 by donaldsc

[Jersey42]

On 9/14/2022 at 7:01 PM, mondello said:

@klfrodo I haven’t missed any cruises but, I have had 2 flights cancelled since the start of the Covid era. My original post refers to the fact the airlines don’t care if I miss my cruise.

If you miss your cruise because of a canceled or delayed flight, insurance may or may not cover you.  The policies all have covered reasons for cancelation/interruption/delay, and unfortunately for the insurance to pay, the flight cancelation or delay has to be for a covered reason.  The best policies will cover you for any common carrier delay beyond X hours documented by the common carrier.  Some policies will cover only a few named reasons such as weather, mechanical breakdown or strike.  Even third party Cancel For Any Reason policies might not help, because they usually require you cancel more than X hours (48 is typical) before trip departure.  

 

When you look at the online summaries/charts of coverages, none of these details will be included.  That is why you have to read the policies.  Or, as many suggest call a good broker such as tripinsurancestore who can explain any of the coverage you are concerned about.

[mondello]

@Jersey42 thank you for the update. I know very little about travel insurance, just because I don’t use it. If I had to cancel, I’m willing to risk our cruise fare because I know I’ll most likely be there. I can cancel with Southwest and get flight credits. Airline problems have just become so common that it’d probably be worth travel insurance for peace of mind.

[Jersey42]

6 minutes ago, mondello said:

@Jersey42 thank you for the update. I know very little about travel insurance, just because I don’t use it. If I had to cancel, I’m willing to risk our cruise fare because I know I’ll most likely be there. I can cancel with Southwest and get flight credits. Airline problems have just become so common that it’d probably be worth travel insurance for peace of mind.

No problem.  I misread your post.  I initially thought you were concerned about losing your cruise fare because of an airline issue.

[ARandomTraveler]

I always buy "cancel for any reason" travel insurance, just in case something comes up that makes me not want to take my trip, and the reason doesn't qualify me to get a cash refund from the cruiseline or air carrier (I don't like that the cruise lines and airlines only offer future travel credits because they often have expiration dates).
 

I learned to do this back in 2017 when hurricane Maria caused a lot of people to either not make their flights to their cruises, or caused them to not want to take their cruises because the islands were destroyed, or they had planned to drive to the cruise terminal but roads were washed out, or their own homes had been flooded etc.

 

The cruise lines still sailed, despite all the damage to the ports, and didn't give refunds to the people who didn't make it to the ship (no matter the reason). As long as the ship can sail, they gave no refunds. 
 

Ever since then, I learned to buy cancel for any reason insurance.

 

That being said, there are lots of other good reasons to buy it, medical issues and potential need for evacuation from a foreign country is a big one. But there are other benefits that you'll often get from the policy that you may end up being able to cash in on, even though it wasn't on your radar.

 

For example, I just took a trip to Europe, and during my trip there was an air traffic control strike that caused my airline to cancel one of my flights between 2 of the countries I was planning to visit. This caused me to have to fly out earlier, and then pay for an extra hotel night at my destination. Even though I didn't purchase travel insurance with this in mind, I realized I could make a claim, and was able to get reimbursed for my hotel, my Ubers, and all the food I ate on the changed travel date. 
 

The $86 cancel for any reason policy that I bought just in case I decided I couldn't make my trip for some reason, ended up paying out over $500 in expenses that I would have had to pay anyway (I was already going to be eating, taking Ubers to the airport and spending a night in a hotel), but now I got a check for those things simply because my insurance policy happened to cover them. 
 

I always buy my policies through insure my trip dot com. The policies that I've made claims through and am happy with are "I Travel Insured (the LX plan)" and "Trawick International (the Voyager plan)". 
 

The I Travel Insured LX plan paid me 75% of all un-reimbursed travel expenses for a cruise that I wanted to cancel because of covid, before things got shut down officially in 2020. I don't know if this specific plan is offered anymore, but the company was really responsive, easy to get ahold of and quick. The only reason I didn't buy from the same company (I travel Insured) this time was because their policies are more expensive than Trawick International was offering, and since I didn't think I needed as extensive of coverage as they offered, I went with the cheaper policy.
 

Both turned out to pay me what I needed, but Trawick International is harder to get ahold of, and much slower to respond. But both paid my claims so I'd recommend either one. 

 

 

Edited September 29, 2022 by ARandomTraveler

[Babr]

Thank you for reporting first-hand experience with companies you have used. That kind of information is useful to those looking for insurance; however, some might get the impression that CFAR is really cheap because you mentioned your $86 premium. It isn’t in most cases because it requires an additional premium depending on the amount insured. It can represent a significant upcharge.
 

As an experienced traveler, you know the CFAR provision was not necessary to cover your claim for the cancelled flight. That is covered by other provisions commonly found in comprehensive travel policies.

 

I think you meant that an inexpensive policy you bought for an entirely different purpose ended up paying off. I just didn’t want someone new to insurance who came here looking for information to think CFAR is either cheap or necessary.

[Crusin Karen]

Husband took care of cruise insurance.  After his death when I booked my CCL Magic cruise I just took their insurance for $90.  Planning to book another and insurance is up to $189.  And I'm just realizing I had/have no idea what CCL would cover,  I don't need flight insurance as I'm close to port but I want cancel for any reason.  What's a good company to check out and how do I find out what CCLinsurance covers?

[GeezerCouple]

26 minutes ago, Crusin Karen said:

Husband took care of cruise insurance.  After his death when I booked my CCL Magic cruise I just took their insurance for $90.  Planning to book another and insurance is up to $189.  And I'm just realizing I had/have no idea what CCL would cover,  I don't need flight insurance as I'm close to port but I want cancel for any reason.  What's a good company to check out and how do I find out what CCLinsurance covers?

 

I strongly suggest that you call www.TripInsuranceStore.com

They are a broker and deal with several vetted travel insurers, and among them, there are quite a few different policies.

CALL them; don't rely upon the online policy summaries, as those can't include all the "fine print", and some of the fine print may not be obvious.  (If you want to browse to see what types of coverage there are, that's obviously fine.)

There is no extra cost to the traveler for using a broker.

 

They will talk with you and probably ask some questions to try to find the policy that best suits your needs.

 

Note that some types of coverage are only available within a short time of making the *first* trip payment (refundable or not), so you probably should speak with them early in case any of the coverages you would want fit in that category.

In most cases, one can insure only the deposit amount at first, and then add insurance each time you make additional payments for non-refundable costs.

 

We've purchase quite a few policies from TIS after reading about them here on CC in 2013 (with Travel Insured, one of the insurers).  We've had several claims, including some large ones, and all of them were paid without nonsense... and that's what matters, after all!

 

In most cases, 3rd party insurance includes more/better coverage than the cruiseline, but that depends upon just which coverage one wants.

But in general, we feel it's important to keep the travel vendor and the insurer separate...  The insurance may cost more, but one gets much more useful coverage, for most people, anyway.  What matters, of course, is what coverages *you* need.

TIS is very patient with newbie questions; we learned a lot before purchasing our first policy.  And they don't try to upsell.

 

GC
 

[Babr]

2 hours ago, Crusin Karen said:

Husband took care of cruise insurance.  After his death when I booked my CCL Magic cruise I just took their insurance for $90.  Planning to book another and insurance is up to $189.  And I'm just realizing I had/have no idea what CCL would cover,  I don't need flight insurance as I'm close to port but I want cancel for any reason.  What's a good company to check out and how do I find out what CCLinsurance covers?

 

https://affinitytravelcert.com/document/pdfs/CCL_Landing.html

 

Here is a link to the summary of Carnival Cruise Protection if you want to take a look. You can find a link to the policy for your specific state by scrolling to the bottom of the page.

 

The Carnival insurance does have a Cancel For Any Reason provision in the form of Future Cruise Credit.

 

If you are new to insurance, you’ll be better off following the advice of GeezerCouple and getting professional help to be sure you are getting what you need.

Edited October 1, 2022 by Babr