Couple questions (car rental and travel insurance related)

[mshanson3121]

1. We will be renting a car for the first time ever. Do we need to purchase extra insurance, or will we be fine as long as we carry SEF27 (the extension of your insurance to other vehicles) on our policy?

2. Travel insurance for getting Covid stateside: are most group plans (Blue Cross) covering this, or will we need to buy an extra plan?

3. Trip cancellation insurance: since we're staying off site, we won't have any Disney policy to fall back on if something happens. Does group travel insurance normally cover cancellation, or do we need to buy something separate? If so, where?

 

[soccerra]

1. Check with your insurance agent what your coverage limit is. Most policies only cover a certain amount. For example ours when we switched companies only covered $20,000 (we made an assumption that it would be the same as before), we were able to extend that to $80,000 for around $20-30/year if I remember correctly. But check with your broker or provider (or if you have your documents then double check them)

2. Our Group Plan through Blue Cross covered us as long as we had not tested positive within the previous 90 days. But the coverage only covered what any normal medical policy would cover. For incidentals/quarantine costs on the USA Side I would HIGHLY recommend getting a Manulife or Allianz coverage. For our 9 day stay in Anaheim it was only around $90 for the two of us, and covered up to $200/day per person (to a maximum of $2500 I believe) in the event you test positive and have to stay. Was cheap coverage for the peace of mind that if one of us tested positive we ride it out in our accommodations, keep our receipts for everything and get most of it reimbursed.

3. Group policies do not generally cover any sort of cancellation. Most seem to exclude Covid anyways. We found the trip cancellation to be fairly pricey so we opted not to purchase it. WestJet has free cancellation for any flights booked by Dec 31st, Car Rentals are cancellable for free (Unless they are a pre-paid deal), our timeshare through RCI you can purchase the points protection and cancel it to get your points back etc etc. So we found that the cost of changing would be less then the cancellation insurance anyways.

For us we felt way more comfortable knowing for sure what we were covered for. I spent hours on our trip to Anaheim calling and making sure we knew what we were and were not covered for. We are seasoned travellers and sort of felt like our "first" trip back was sort of a relearning process. We leave for Orlando in a couple weeks and I have spent far less time getting this organized.

 

[soccerra]

Just an addition as well:
Don't feel pressured to buy the Car Rental Companies Insurance. For some agencies it's almost like a Timeshare Presentation, it's high pressure, you won't be covered for this and that. Florida is a non-fault state etc etc etc. Just hold your ground, their insurance is NOT MANDATORY. If you feel like purchasing it (sometimes $20-30/day) will give you that amount of peace of mind then that's up to you. Personally we have always felt comfortable with our own coverage, but I worked in the Rental Car Industry for quite a while so I might feel a little more secure with the process.
Another aside is depending on what kind of Credit Card you have, if it's a World Elite or similar it also carries Car Rental Coverage. Some Cards will actually cover the cost of your deductible if you don't claim the accident through their insurer and through yours (A decision you can make at the time, do what is going to be less of an insurance hit for you, what makes the most money sense).