Trip insurance worthwhile?

[cpgrneyes]

I do understand that insurance is something you hope you never need. With that said, we're taking our families on a big Alaska trip. 7 people, 3 veranda cabins. I'm the ancient one at 54, but we're all very healthy, no family members ill, etc. No real reason for insurance other than the big price we're paying to go!

 

We're all flying in a day early, so hopefully that eliminates another concern.

 

Is it worth $100/person that Celebrity is charging? I looked at very basic insurance independently, and it's still about $450.

 

You're the real experts, what do you think?

[FloridaHockeyGuy]

Obviously, insurance is a personal decision.

 

IF you are independently wealthy, and have the money to throw away in case something happens, don't get it.

 

However, are you prepared to lose your entire payment should a family member (even one not travelling with you) die just before or during the trip? Or would you prefer to be covered and get your money back so that you can retrip the trip at a later time?

 

Should somebody get sick or even injured, do you have unlimited health insurance? At least it is in Alaska, so hopefully your plan may cover some expenses, but do you want to find after the fact that they don't cover some expenses? What about if you have to be evacuated off the ship for the same reason- do you think your plan will cover the enormous cost of that.

 

Don't get me wrong, I pretty much hate insurance companies, because a lot of them are liars who love to take your premium and do every trick in the book to avoid paying (you people who work in the insurance industry, please don't flame me, I have nothing against the actual people that work there). But I know that in my case I only have catastrophic medical, and if something should happen to one of us in our upcoming cruise to the Baltic, we would be up the proverbial creek without a...well, you know. I ended up going to insuremytrip.com and got a policy through them from AIG, which included $50K of medical coverage and $1 Million of evacuation (along with the standard baggage delay, trip cancellation, trip interrruption, etc), for about $9 per person per day, a small price to pay for the piece of mind that should something happen to us (or our mothers or other family members not travelling with us) that we will not lose our cruise money, or worse yet, be in massive debt.

 

Obviously, if we are taking a short trip somewhere, I never take it, figuring I can always change a flight, and other costs are usually minimal. But with a cruise, I doubt I would go without, when you look at the risk/reward ratio.

 

Just my two cents worth. Good luck with your decision.

[CruznTom]

Does yiur regular insurance cover a medivac flight if anybody has a heart attack, needs an appendectomy etc.?

Medivac is usually somewhere between 20 and 50 thousand dollars.

[cpgrneyes]

Actually, 3 of us are covered by Medex for evacuation, but i do understand the other risks. Having recently suffered a number of family losses, we would have definitely bought the insurance while they were ill. And yes, it is a personal decision...it's just tough to keep shelling out the $$$ after paying for 7 people's cruises AND air!

 

That said, I doubt I'll look back and be upset I spent another $450, but if I did need the insurance and DIDN'T buy it, that would be a whole other regret.

 

We make final payment today - does the insurance need to be purchased before we do that?

[Susan-M]

Two questions that I consider when deciding on insurance are:

 

Would the loss for air and cruise fare be more than I would want to absorb if something happened that prevented us from going on the trip (illness, injury)?

 

Would it be a hardship to have to pay for a return trip home mid-vacation if necessary because of illness or injury?

 

We've purchased insurance after booking a trip...if a covered risk occurs, you just need to be able to verify that it occurred after you purchased the insurance.

 

Does the policy that you are considering cover you in the event that the airline goes out of business, or if the flight is delayed and you miss the cruise or delays due to weather? Some policies cover for cancellation due to medical reasons only, others are more comprehensive.

[woodofpine]

Actually, 3 of us are covered by Medex for evacuation, but i do understand the other risks. Having recently suffered a number of family losses, we would have definitely bought the insurance while they were ill. And yes, it is a personal decision...it's just tough to keep shelling out the $$$ after paying for 7 people's cruises AND air!

 

That said, I doubt I'll look back and be upset I spent another $450, but if I did need the insurance and DIDN'T buy it, that would be a whole other regret.

 

We make final payment today - does the insurance need to be purchased before we do that?

 

Travel insurance is VIRTUALLY WORTHLESS!! (Unless of course, you need it! :D)

 

I've gone without it about as often as I have bought it. Curiously, I never even think about except when cruising... (And I once had need of a visit to a physician in Austria due to minor [thankfully] ski injury to the knee]) It depends a lot on where I'm going and with whom and my risk tolerance at a particular time. That said, all it takes is one poster's discription of the financial fallout of the 'unforeseen' to make anyone yell 'Include insurance please!'

 

I don't know if you need to buy it from the line with final payment (although it's easiest then). Also, you can buy travel insurance independent of the line offering from reputable companies (online) up to a couple days prior to departure.

 

Naturally, Good Luck! :D

[MMDown Under]

We are constantly reminded that, if you can't afford the insurance, you can't afford the travel.

 

Unforeseen things happen and can be unbelievably expensive.

 

It depends what you are covered for under your existing insurance policies. However, you should shop around for insurance, as the prices quoted are very expensive.

 

We paid $322Aus for 2 months' insurance!

 

We pay for our insurance before we make a deposit, as our deposits are non-refundable. Ideally, you should have insurance before you make your final payment (unless your final payment is refundable, with charges less than the cost of the insurance).

[Hootsie]

We are 41 year olds traveling with three daughters, ages 20, 16 & 15 to Europe the end of May for our cruise. You better believe we bought insurance.

 

I wound up with a stress fracture in my fibula on Monday from all the running I do so while it won't stop me from going (I should be pretty much healed) it just shows you anything can happen.

 

We have always used Travel Guard and we got our info from here: http://www.insuremytrip.com

 

I sleep so much better knowing I have insurance.

 

Oh, I didn't buy it until a couple weeks after our final payment. I don't know if all insurance companies allow you to do this, but Travel Guard did.

[CaribbeanBound]

We have always bought cruise insurance, but thankfully have not yet needed it.

 

Once you've decided whether or not to buy the insurance, the next question is "which insurance"? I would contend that you should never buy the cruislines own insurance. If they go under, you're totally screwed. For that same reason, I would not buy insurance that is issued BY my travel agent, although independent insurance purchased FROM my TA is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

Here are 16 really useful tips for selecting travel insurance:

www.lavasurfer.com/info/travel-insurance.html

[calberry]

Two years ago my father-in-law passed away while we were in the middle of a 10 day cruise on the Paul Gauguin. We were able to get an emergency flight from Rangiroa to Tahiti and then home. By having insurance we were reimbursed for 1) The flight home (and they coordinated that...although not well) 2) meals during travel, 3) pre-paid post cruise tours and land stay (we missed staying 3 nights in an over-water bungalow at the Hotel Bora Bora) as well as 4) a proration of the cost of the cruise for the days lost.

 

The cost of the premium was worth every penny!

 

Steve

[dkjretired]

Don't know if you are doing any Canadian ports but another reason to get travel insurance is as medical insurance. Many policies don't cover being out of the country.

[SoCalGal]

I had some (mild) heart problems on our cruise in the Med several years ago. I was taken off the ship to a hospital and to make a long story short did manage to rejoin the cruise a couple of days later. The ship charged us $5000.00 for sick bay, the hospital in Sicily didn't charge us, nor did the Italian coast guard charge us for my evacuation. I did have travel insurance but believe it or not my private Blue Cross policy covered all medical expenses. Had I needed an emergency flight home the travel insurance would have covered it. Needless to say we always buy travel insurance. (But be sure to shop around for a good policy)

[judy&steve]

I had to use the ship's infirmary for two separate illnesses that occurred on our recent Summit crossing. They were probably related, but the treatments, emergency cabin call, IVs, etc., plus the expense of having to hire a private car to take us to the airport hopefully will be covered by our insurance or the insurance we purchased for the cruise. We always buy the insurance, cheap at the price, but this time I know I need to make a claim. The past couple of cruises, the medical care was so reasonable that it was not worth it to submit a claim to Blue Cross or Berkeley. This time, very expensive and I hope to get reimbursed. I am fairly certain the car will not be covered, but I'm going to try and hope for the best. Believe me, the people on the X Transfer to Heathrow should thank us for being so considerate not to expose them to whatever horrible germs we had. I'll let you all know how the claim process goes.

--Judy

[emptynest1]

We had it when my luggage was run over by the forklift. It paid for itself in the bag replacement cost.

I have never been on a cruise that someone on the ship didn't go home early for illness or injury. Broken hip in bad seas, heart attack, ruptured appendix, etc.

It is worth the peace of mind for us to pay the extra.

[jerseygirl3]

I do understand that insurance is something you hope you never need. With that said, we're taking our families on a big Alaska trip. 7 people, 3 veranda cabins. I'm the ancient one at 54, but we're all very healthy, no family members ill, etc. No real reason for insurance other than the big price we're paying to go!

 

We're all flying in a day early, so hopefully that eliminates another concern.

 

Is it worth $100/person that Celebrity is charging? I looked at very basic insurance independently, and it's still about $450.

 

You're the real experts, what do you think?

 

While I can understand your reluctance to have to cough up another $450, after spending so much on your cruise, I say get it. It's well worth the peace of mind. Three years ago, my seemingly perfectly healthy 45-year-old husband suffered a massive brainstem stroke 3 weeks before we were due to sail on a 10-day cruise. The man had no risk factors and I couldn't even remember the last time he had had a cold. Thankfully, he survived, but naturally we had to cancel our cruise, as well we as a Mediterranean cruise we were due to sail on 6 months later, as his illness ran into complications. We would have been out thousands of dollars. Although we would have received our full deposit back on our European cruise, we would have been out our airfare. And of course we got back everything for the cruise we were to leave on 3 weeks after his stroke.

 

If there are no pre-existing conditions you need to cover, you can purchase cruise insurance even after final payment. However, I wouldn't tempt fate. If someone develops some sort of illness next week and you haven't already purchased your insurance, it will then be considered a pre-existing condition and won't be covered by insurance if you needed to cancel for something related to it.

[donaldsc]

I insure for the big stuff - medical and evacuation. I figure that I can afford the loss if I have to cancel my cruise for some reason and IMHO, trip delay and baggage loss is a waste of money.

 

I have a 1 year policy for medical and evacuation that covers all trips overseas and any trip more than 300 miles (I think) away from home in the USA. It cost my wife and I about $400.

 

Check with InsureMytTrip.

 

DON

[hancock]

Another website to check is http://www.totaltravelinsurance.com

I have found a couple of different policies on it that I didn't find on insuremytrip.com.

 

I booked my kids on a cruise a year ago. They were to fly out the day before the cruise. Because of weather, they never made the cruise. I was very glad I had travel insurance for their cruise. You never know what might happen !

[MMDown Under]

I hope you didn't see your luggage run over by a forklift, or you might have been a candidate for a heart attack. :)

[ladyjane550]

YESSSS - My brother was in St. Maarten and suffered a heart attack. They had to come up with $25,000 CASH to get him to Orlanda, Florida via MedJet and it took them 17 hours to get proper heatlhcare. He now lives with a difibilator and pacemaker (lost 1/2 of his heart). He was only 50 years old.

[Putterdude]

You bet we take out travel health insurance. We also take out cancellation insurance, when you have thousands of dollars out for a cruise, anything can happen to prevent you from taking it.

[emptynest1]

I hope you didn't see your luggage run over by a forklift, or you might have been a candidate for a heart attack. :)

Thanks for the concern, but I must admit I did take a deep breath when I saw my Tumi held together with duct tape. Yes, it was sitting outside the door to my cabin wrapped in duct tape. Customer service was great, but the cost of the bag and contents went beyond what Celebrity was liable for so the insurance picked up the rest and I was happy.

[esther e]

Depending on the cruise, (stateroom and length and our ages) we have been known to pay about $800 extra for insurance. Well worth every penny......if you need it. Same as house insurance: we hope never to need it, but it would be foolish not to have it.

[FunForUs]

Check out tripinsurancestore.com

 

They go into great detail to explain the differences in the coverage that is offered by the companies. They are very helpful in explaining some of the options.

[slim24usus]

In April of 06 we were booked a suite on the Costa Fortuna for a Mediterannean cuise. We took insurance (private). The trip was a technically a total disaster (but one of the best we've had for excitement).

Short version ice storm in US , Snow storm in Frankfurt, delayed a day. Missed the boat Luggage went to Milan, we went to Rome to catch the boat. Missed big excursion in Rome. NO luggage for nine days! Rain storm on Crete, HAIL storm latter the same day in the "rustic" Village excursion. Sand storm in Egypt while AT THE pyramids! Jammed my BRAND NEW 12 megapixal camera!

 

Lufthansa put up up one the night we missed, fed us. We had no chance to buy clothes since we had to rush and I mean rush to cath the ship in Civateveccia (Rome). We bought some Clothes in Egypt.

 

When we got home we contacted the insurance company. They said call Lufthansa first. Lufthansa sent me about $500 as I remember, Called in surance company they said yada yada yada, deductable, lufthansa paid..... no money.

We only missed one day, had no luggage for 9 days of an 11 day cruise! Insurance was useless BUT If I had missed the whole trip. The $400 I spent on insurance would (probably ) been woth the trip cost.

[des1rees]

As many pointed out, I get Trip Insurance for peace of mind, knowing I am covered if something should go wrong.

 

I dont bother if the trip is local, or below a certain amount. But if it is internation, over 2K or a cruise, I do it.

 

I have booked my family ( 6 of us) into the Celebrity Mercury sailing Sep 2009, and it is quite an expensive vacation for us ( 14K for the cruise alone). The insurance options offered by the cruiseline seemed kind of expensive, so went through http://www.squaremouth.com, where you can put in your specifics and get specific quotes, and then compare them based on what you are looking for, or what is important to you. This way, if anything should go wrong, then I am covered.

 

D.