Another Insurance Question

[olookasquirrel]

So excited! After a grueling 2.5 hours on the phone with a lovely lady from Costco (I really hope they let her at least play solitaire while on hold with Disney), we are booked on the Wonder Southern Caribbean from San Juan!

Normally I don't do insurance - figure we're young and healthy and plan to fly out far enough ahead of time to not worry about missing the boat, and can handle the tiny risk of loss as missing the boat would hurt me worse than losing the money.

Buuuuut - mother in law was just diagnosed with cancer . Bad cancer, and she wasn't in the greatest health to begin with. I'm not foreseeing her lasting to the cruise (she wouldn't be going either way), but I know pre-existing conditions need to buy travel insurance within 2 weeks of first payment, and I'm guessing this would count as a pre-existing condition?

Does anyone have any advice or experience with insurance to let us know what to buy in case the worst happens during or just before the cruise period?

 

[JWG]

One option is "cancel for any reason" coverage (which isn't necessarily as straight forward as that - so read what it means for each policy). It adds a bit to the cost of the plan but does increase flexibility. Otherwise, I'm not as knowledgeable on this specific scenario. We always get trip insurance but mostly for the medical evacuation coverage just in case.

 

[gotomu212]

Look at the individual policies for the relationships they cover. You want to make sure you get a policy that allows cancellation for a non-traveling party death and then look for what family members relationships they will cover. For example we have insurance that would allow us to cancel for the death of a non-traveling spouse, parent, or child. They would not cover ours if a sibling or grandparent died for example.

Also very sorry that your mother in law is so sick.

 

[moet7]

I spoke with a Costco TA also about pre-existing conditions. She informed me that I have 21 days from first payment to buy the insurance that would give me the pre-existing condition coverage. She also informed me that it would cover family members who have a pre-existing condition example a mother, father, aunt, etc. She told me that I can just insure the amount of my deposit for now and when PIF date comes I can finish paying for the rest of the insurance. This way if we have to cancel we are just out the insurance that we paid on the deposit and everything else is covered as we would be cancelling before PIF. You should call back and clarify all of this with them. Good Luck! Cancer sucks!

 

[CM Dad]

Buuuuut - mother in law was just diagnosed with cancer . Bad cancer, and she wasn't in the greatest health to begin with. I'm not foreseeing her lasting to the cruise (she wouldn't be going either way), but I know pre-existing conditions need to buy travel insurance within 2 weeks of first payment, and I'm guessing this would count as a pre-existing condition?

Sorry to hear about your mother-in-law. Hard to tell with cancer. My 88 year old mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer 2 years ago. This was her 3rd bout of different cancers and she opted to forego treatment this time. When she forced her oncologist a year and a half ago to give her an estimate on how much time she had left, she was told that the textbook answer was 6 months. She decided last month that it was time for her to move to assisted living, but she is still fairly independent.

 

[olookasquirrel]

Thanks all!

Sorry to hear about your mother-in-law. Hard to tell with cancer. My 88 year old mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer 2 years ago. This was her 3rd bout of different cancers and she opted to forego treatment this time. When she forced her oncologist a year and a half ago to give her an estimate on how much time she had left, she was told that the textbook answer was 6 months. She decided last month that it was time for her to move to assisted living, but she is still fairly independent.

Sorry about your mom. Yes, she hasn't even gotten an estimate from her oncologist, she doesn't want to know. Based on the stage and the type, I'm not optimistic, but we're taking it a day at a time and making sure our kids spend as much time with Grandma as they can. Like I said, I don't think January 2019 is going to be an issue, but I'm not calling it so I'd rather get insurance just in case. She does have a type that's been shown to be somewhat responsive to a new treatment - I'm a geneticist so I find the new cancer research fascinating.

Guess I'll call Costco tomorrow and see if they can add insurance to our segment that would cover this. Probably starting to be a good idea anyway.

 

[hcox31]

Sorry about your MIL.

Insurance covers more than just missing the boat. Your child could trip and break their arm and you'd have to get treated on the boat or a local hospital. Anything could happen. There could be a freak hurricane outside of hurricane season. Given this year's hurricane season I wouldn't be surprised!

I would never travel without it, no matter how healthy I think my family is (or isn't).

 

[fredandkell]

YES other people's illnesses do count as pre-existing conditions, so buy travel insurance ASAP and choose the pre-existing conditions waiver. Most policies require you to buy within 10-20 days of first payment in order to be able to get this coverage.

 

[pittchick17]

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