Travel insurance

[Mimiunb]

Hi, 

 

I am wondering what people use for travel insurance. Any companies that are better than others? We are 2 adults and two kids under 5 if that matters. 

[Ourusualbeach]

Just now, Mimiunb said:

Hi, 

 

I am wondering what people use for travel insurance. Any companies that are better than others? We are 2 adults and two kids under 5 if that matters. 

Depends what you are looking for in the way of insurance.

 

Medical

Evac

Trip calcellation

Trip delay and interruption

Cancel for any reason.

[ARandomTraveler]

I always go to insure my trip dot com, and select the options for comprehensive, cancel-for-any-reason insurance. I like that because it gives me a back-up option for getting a refund if none of the other covered reasons of the policy easily apply

to my situation. For example, if for some reason a hurricane rolls through the islands you're visiting a week before your trip, and you don't feel like visiting an island where all the businesses are closed and the beaches are full of debris, then you can cancel, even though the cruise is still sailing and the island is still technically visitable (making it unlikely that you'd be able to make an insurance claim under any other rule of the policy). The website will narrow down a bunch of different insurance companies and their various policies that offer that.

 

In order to buy cancel-for-any-reason policies there's usually a rule that the insurance has to be bought within 14-21 days of making your initial trip deposit. 
 

I generally just start reading the terms of all the policies in order to narrow them down to the ones that have the best coverage for a reasonable price. Sometimes there are policies that offer really good coverage on things you wouldn't even think about (like paying you money if your cruise changes itineraries), but that you might not care enough about to justify the extra cost of that policy. 
 

But on the other hand, you might realize, after reading multiple policies, that there are things you'd like covered that you might not have thought about, and reading the policies is what educates you about all those options. For example, having a policy that covers trip interruptions due to a strike might not be something you would have even thought about or known was a thing you could cover, but it is. That came in handy for me when I went to Europe because they have lots of airline and train operator strikes that can disrupt your travel, but maybe for a Caribbean cruise, you wouldn't care about that. 
 

And the terms on different policies will be different. For example, some require you to cancel your trip more than 72 hours before the trip, and others may require more or less. And some will give you trip interruption compensation, but only if you've already completed at least 48 hours of your trip. Some will compensate you for airline delays, but one policy will say your plane has to be delayed 6 hours or more, while another says 10 hours or more. So, knowing all of these details ahead of time will make it so you're not surprised later when you try to make a claim. 

[shellunderwater]

Also look at square mouth dot com.  Haven't used the above, just the one I mentioned.

 

Consider the need for medical, evacuation.  I'd prefer to be sent to FL or TX from the Caribbean in the event of something major.

[sft429]

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/2606-qa-cruise-insurance-with-steve-dasseos-of-the-tripinsurancestorecom-november-2022/

[BND]

We just purchased annual insurance for the first time for this year.  

[ronlennon]

We purchased Allianz One-Time Prime for our 7 day May cruise to the Western Caribbean. It was just a little bit more than Carnival Insurance and covers a lot more on medical, and medical evacuation and covers everything that Carnival's did.